Werewolves - The Witch Series Vol 1

by CarmillaPL

Charlotte Benoit, a professional Witch, arrived in Beacon Hills at Laura Hale's request, but no amount of magic could have prepared her for what she found on the spot. It becomes apparent very quickly that what started out as a quick, easy mission to help her friend turns out to be a swamp from which it's not so easy to get out. The witch will be forced to make difficult choices,

3. Chapter 2: Second Chance at First Line

15. January 2011 - Saturday

The next morning Charlie woke slowly, she didn't want to come out of that state of blissful unconsciousness when nothing in the world mattered. Unfortunately, a chilly gust of wind coming through the open window prevented her from doing so, while at the same time letting her know that she was in bed alone. She breathed a sigh of relief. It wasn't often that she had the opportunity to wake up after this kind of adventure, especially with a complete stranger. If she turned around now and found that he was still there, in bed with her, she would probably die of embarrassment. It had happened a few times before that Darkness had taken control of her, but never under such circumstances. She suspected it might have had something to do with the fact that she had previously rather avoided contact with predators of that kind. Particularly since almost ten years ago, when her old friend Deuc invited her to a rally, in the form of his Emissary. The adventure ended in a bloody butchery, making her prefer to avoid contact with werewolves.

She spent the weekend pondering how she should actually behave in a possible future meeting with Derek, and if he was indeed who he claimed to be, she had little chance of avoiding the event. She was only snapped out of her musings by an encounter with Sharon as they both shopped in a market near the school.

'Charlotte,' the dark-skinned woman greeted her new friend, measuring her carefully with a glance. 'Did you have a good date yesterday?'

'I...' stammered the younger woman, wondering if the English teacher was clairvoyant. 'Yes, something like that...'

'Girl, why did you let him out of bed? You still have soft knees... Ah, youth... ' trailed off like a cathartic Sharon, clearly seeing the redhead's embarrassment and not caring. She had taken a liking to her almost at first sight, and was keen for the girl to loosen up a bit, as she seemed perpetually tense. 'Handsome? Intelligent? I don't have to ask about other qualities, because I can see that from you perfectly...' she smiled perversely.

'Handsome... and probably not stupid... But it's more of a one-night thing...' Charlie tried to keep her cool, but conversations like this were completely alien to her, she had been brought up in a different way, and although she was aware that some people might see her as rigid or a prude, the rules were instilled in her too deeply and far too strongly for her to overcome in the immediate future.

'If he doesn't call you, it means he's stupid after all,' commented older woman. 'But if he brings you breakfast in bed next time, you'd better chain him to the radiator and not let him out,' she winked at her and walked away towards the tills.

The witch stood for a moment by the dairy fridges, looking after the woman who was walking away, shocked. Unpretentiousness had always been a trait Charlie admired, that's exactly what Luise was, but the English teacher's level was definitely beyond her, although she knew Sharon wanted to be friends with her. The redhead had a feeling that she was going to become the English teacher's private project in the coming days, she just wasn't sure what its purpose would be.

17th January 2011 - Monday

Scott walked into the locker room, moving like a zombie. His gaze was dead, motionless, all energy evaporated from him. He couldn't believe that everything around him, everything he had managed to fix, had crumbled in an instant, the moment he recognised the face of Allison's father. The face of the Hunter who, just Friday night, had fired a crossbow at him. Moments earlier, the boy had been convinced that things were beginning to look up. The girl had forgiven him for his bizarre behaviour at the party and agreed to give him a second chance. Now, on the other hand, it didn't matter in the slightest, because her father was the man who wanted to kill him.

Of course, he didn't suspect that her father would be happy knowing that his daughter was dating any boy. No father would be, but this situation crossed the boundaries of any stereotype. He doubted that the lives of any of his colleagues were actually in danger just because their were dating some girl. On the other hand, none of them were werewolves. Scott had to admit to himself, as much as he didn't want to, that Stiles was right. There was no chance of denying it after that night, after the changes that the light of the full moon had caused in his body, after what had happened in the woods and after what Derek had told him. His life had turned into a complete disaster.

The boy leaned heavily against his locker in the changing room, breathing heavily. This was the state Stiles found him in.

'You apologize to Allison?' He asked, measuring his friend with worried eyes, easily seeing that something was severely wrong.

'Yeah...' whispered the black-haired boy, still in a state of shock.

'So, she's giving you a second chance?'

'Yeah.'

'Then everything's good?' rejoiced Stiles and was about to walk away when his friend's words stopped him in mid-step.

'No.'

'No?' he quipped.

'Remember the Hunters? Her dad is one of them ' Scott was still trying to digest this information, himself not believing the words he had just said. His friend hung his disbelieving gaze on him.

'Her dad?'

'He shot me...'

'Allison's father? ' fell into his words huskily, in disbelief.

' ... With a crossbow.'

'Allison's father ... ' repeated Stiles after a moment's pause, the information couldn't reach him, what were the chances of such a turn of events? Practically nul, it was impossible, although on the other hand, what was the likelihood of his best mate being bitten by a werewolf?

'Yes, her father!' shouted Scott, feeling the world come crashing down around him. ' Oh, my God... What am I going to do?'

'Scott, don't freak out! ' a friend reached out to the teenager, who began to panic, patting him reassuringly on the face in an attempt to get his attention. 'Okay... Did he recognize you?'

'No, I don't think so...' The black-haired finally managed to gather some thoughts.

'Does she know about him? ' the skinny guy asked.

'I... I don't know' Scott looked fearfully into his friend's eyes. 'And if she does? It's over...'

The sound of a whistle came from the pitch, distracting Stiles for a moment.

' All right, okay, we'll figure it out. Just... Just concentrate on practice. On lacrosse. he announced, handing his friend the game outfit that he had unknowingly stuffed into his locker earlier.

When the two of them finally ran out onto the field, where the coach was shouting instructions, there was a history teacher sitting in the stands already, who had not managed to wriggle out of her promise to coach Bobby Finstock any longer. As a result, she witnessed Scott attack one of the players and seriously injure his shoulder. The teacher immediately sprang into action and ordered Stiles to get his friend off the pitch and calm him down. She was about to approach the injured boy, but noticed that Derek was standing by the stands, staring intently at her, although she knew at once that he had not come there to see her. So she immediately changed her plan and took a quick step towards where the suspected werewolf teenager had disappeared.

She was just in time to see Stiles leap out of the locker room, holding a fire extinguisher in his arms. His face expressed pure terror, so she assumed he must have been attacked by his friend, and used the extinguisher as a weapon. When he spotted her, he tried to cover the entrance to the room with himself, but she squeezed past him and saw Scott's terrified, confused face.

'Stiles... What happened' his friend looked at him and then at the teacher, unsure if he could answer honestly in her presence. He set the fire extinguisher down on the floor, trying to shake off the fear and anger he felt towards his mate at that moment.

'You tried to kill him...' the words came from her mouth 'It's because of the anger. The blood circulates faster and triggers change.'

'But that's lacrosse. It's a pretty violent game if you hadn't noticed' there were tears in Scott's voice.

'It will be even more so if you kill someone on the field.'

'You can't play Saturday, you have to get out of the game.' Stiles stood up for the teacher.

' But I'm first line' - tried to oppose the young werewolf.

'Not anymore...'

'Can you talk to me about it?' she interjected, feeling that they had forgotten about her.

The boys straightened reflexively, looking at her with disbelieving eyes, paralysed with fear that someone had discovered their secret. Stiles shook himself off first, calculating something in his mind.

'Charlotte Benoit... Have you graduated in cultural anthropology at Princeton, perhaps? ' He asked, letting it be known that he had done a really decent job of scouring the endlessness of the internet for information on what might have happened to his colleague. And the fact that, in all the heaps of meaninglessness contained on the web, he had managed to find work signed with her name was very indicative of his level of cleverness and commitment.

'Exactly the same, although I think I might have bonded a bit with my mother and grandmother, it's kind of like the family business,' she smiled radiantly at him, then shifted her concerned gaze to the other teenager again. The young werewolf studied her with his eyes, having heard some strange disturbance in her heartbeat. 'You can't handle this alone, Scott, wolves are social animals, they live in packs, and two of you are definitely not enough... How about some tea and a chat after you get changed?'

Scott threw her a disbelieving look, then silently asked his friend to explain to him what was actually going on.

'Turns out Ms Benoit, certainly a completely coincidental coincidence,' he pointed out with irony. 'She is one of our country's most respected specialists in all sorts of creatures from... fairy tales and myths... such as werewolves, which turn out to be a bit more real than any self-respecting scientist would assume,' Stiles lectured, mirroring the teacher with a very suspicious eye.

'A coincidence, indeed, but not that big chance. I've come here to solve a problem that you guys, by coincidence, have stumbled upon and can't get out of without my help.'

The boys came to her classroom, just as they had promised. She tried to stay calm, explaining to Scott what he could expect from is body not being fully human anymore, but Stiles made it hard for her, adding something from himself all the time. It seemed that for such a short time, they were already pretty well informed and handling the knowledge not too badly. After about an hour she sent them home so that they still had time to do their homework, after which she packed up and left the school herself.

Scott came home completely depressed. Everything that day had conspired against him. Despite all the pluses Derek had told him about, the bite really was a curse. His girlfriend's father wanted to kill him, he couldn't play in the next game, everything was wrong. He didn't want to allow himself to think that he had got into the first line just because of the bite that had improved his fitness. Like a typical teenager, he preferred to wallow in total despair and see only one side of the coin.

He threw himself on his bed and covered his head with a pillow, but his boredom in black despair was interrupted by the voice of his mother, who entered the room.

'Late shift again for me' she announced, and he noticed that she was indeed, dressed in her nursing outfit, ready to go. 'But I'm taking a night off to see your first game'

'Mom, you can't.'

'I can and I will,' she smiled, walking up to her son and putting on a serious face, looking at him. - 'One shift won'break us. Not completely ' she leaned over him, combing her fingers through his tousled hair. 'What's wrong with your eyes?' She asked concernedly, causing confusion in the boy. 'You look like you haven't slept in days.'

'Oh. It's nothing. Just kind of stressed,' Scott replied, sitting down on the bed and pulling away from his parent.

'Kind of? Nothing else? You're not on drugs or anything?' worried Melissa.

'Right now?' Scott looked away, not knowing what to actually say to his mum.

'Right now?' repeated, emphasising the word strongly, the woman. 'What do you mean right now? Have you ever taken grugs?' She asked in disbelief.

'Have you?' replied her son, in a completely calm voice, as if they had similar conversations every day.

Melissa froze with her mouth half-open, looked helplessly around the room and stood up.

'Get some sleep,' she stroked her son's hair once more and left his room, without looking back and twirling the car keys in her hand.

Scott lay down on his bed again, intending to follow his mum's advice, but this time he was interrupted by the sound of his computer informing him of an incoming video call. So he moved to his desk and opened the flap of his laptop, so that a moment later his eyes could see a window, and in it Stiles, firing a toy gun at him, flashing coloured lights.

'What'd you find out? the young werewolf got straight to the point, bringing his friend back to reality.

'It's bad. Jackson's got a separated shoulder,' Stiles announced, showing no sympathy whatsoever for his disliked colleague.

'Because of me?'

'Because he's a tool. It's not your fault,' the sheriff's son corrected.

'Is he going to play?' Scott frowned, feeling a sudden surge of remorse, which he'd managed to forget, at his conversation with his mum.

'They don't know yet. But now they're all counting on you for Saturday' replied Stiles, whose face blurred for a moment on the computer screen. The internet connection must have been hanging up for a bit.

Scott was silent, immersed in his own thoughts as his friend's face zoomed in on the display, obscuring the rest of the room from the teenager, who watched the darkness behind his friend's back closely for a moment. The teenage werewolf focused his attention again on the other boy's moles-covered face, wondering what the other boy was up to.

'What?'

Stiles seemed frightened and didn't say a word, but the tapping of his fingers against the keyboard reached Scott's ears, while the camera image continued to blur every so often. Suddenly, a dialogue box appeared on the screen and read: " Looks like ...". The cursor changed to a circle, representing the loading process, clearly letting him know that the internet connection had crashed, and the image on the monitor froze. Scott, impatiently read the message aloud, moving the mouse as if the action would change anything.

After a moment, the image moved again, Stiles' face moved away, and another cloud popped up next to it, announcing: "...someone's behind you". His breath froze in his chest as he leaned over the monitor, looking at the image from his camera. At first he saw only his own face, but in the shadows behind him, not far from the bathroom entrance, the outline of a human silhouette could actually be seen.

Scott turned abruptly in his chair, but did not have time to do anything else as two strong hands picked him up from his chair and pressed him against the wall. The impact pushed almost all the air out of the teenager's lungs. The laptop fell to the floor, causing the teenager to groan and try to resist. At the same moment, the attacker turned him to face the wall, twisting his arm behind his back.

'I saw you on the field,' Derek's hushed voice rang out right next to the teenager's ear.

'What? What are you talking...' didn't understand the boy, panting heavily, trying to catch his breath.

'You shifted in front of them!' the older man shouted. 'If they find out what you are , they'll find out about me. About all of us. And it's not just the Hunters who will hunt us, it's everyone,' he explained, a little quieter.

'But they didn't see. No one did...'

'The redheaded teacher saw,' growled Derek.

'She won't say anything, she knew about us beforehand, I think she's also...' tried to explain Scott, but he was still struggling to control his breathing.

'No one else is supposed to know! If you try to playthat game Saturday...' the striker's voice lowered dangerously and was now almost a whisper '... I'll kill you myself.'

The teenager suddenly felt he could move, turned confused, only to see an empty room. Derek disappeared as suddenly as he had appeared.

As she walked into the house later that evening, putting her keys down on the console by the door, she felt that something was not as it should be. Isle, despite the mobility problems caused by her broken paw, always came out to greet her, but this time she did not appear. Instead, a visibly stressed Behemoth and Astra were waiting for her in the hallway. She discovered the reason for the pets' strange behaviour upon entering the kitchen. Leaning against the cupboards, with a mug full of coffee, stood Derek Hale, whose legs were being tickled by her dog, the little traitor. The unannounced visitor looked at the teacher almost defiantly, with a raised eyebrow. He slid a second cup, filled with the same liquid, across the counter towards her, evidently feeling at home.

All the scenarios, so meticulously thought out by her, describing their next meeting had taken a nosedive, she hadn't foreseen that. So she stayed in the doorway, where she paused at the sight of him, folded her hands in front of her and defiantly reciprocated his gaze. She realised that, without the aid of a raging Darkness, she looked funny rather than threatening at the moment, but she hoped that the man would realise that she was not happy with his presence.

'Derek... If that is indeed your name... To what do I owe this very unexpected visit?' she tried not to take her eyes off his face, although she had to admit to herself that the thought of glancing at the matching T-shirt and jeans was very tempting.

'I am who I said I was, it's you I have my doubts about. And it is to this that you owe my visit today...' he had to admit to himself that even fully dressed, in long black jeans, leather jacket and tactical boots, he was attracted to her with incredible power. This time, however, he knew how to control himself. He had to, wanting to find out who the mystery girl actually was. It was hard for him to believe that she wasn't a threat, but it was also possible that she wasn't the enemy. After all, the previous morning he had woken up, alive and well, in her bed, and her petite figure, trustingly snuggled into his side, had almost completely lulled the fears that had returned to him only hours after he had quietly left her house at dawn.

'The last one too...' slipped out against her will, and then she felt a wave of heat flood her neck, heralding the blush that followed a moment later on her cheeks.

The man looked away from her, also visibly embarrassed, but quickly recovered, continuing.

'You're not a Hunter, I believe you, but you're no ordinary human either... You hang around my house too often. I have a right to be suspicious. Besides, you know about the kid.'

'I, at least, don't enter your house without an invitation,' she fired out, increasingly furious. She couldn't understand how he was able to awaken the Darkness in her so easily. Already she was beginning to feel its tentacles slowly slipping out of that dark space wrapped tightly around her heart. She tried to suppress the urge to lash out at him and rip out his throat, she knew that if she gave in, the results could be tragic. She took a few deep breaths, trying to calm herself. She could feel his gaze on her, watching her closely, sensing that something strange was happening to her. Without a word he followed her movements as she walked over to the countertop and reached for the mug of coffee he had made for her.

'You're right, I'm sorry,' he continued when he found that she had calmed down. 'Our acquaintance began ... unusual... ' he stammered at this, collecting his thoughts. 'But we both know that neither you nor I are standard members of society. You are here for a reason, and your actions indicate that this reason is similar to mine. You are also looking for Laura, aren't you?'

'Yes,' she replied, sipping her coffee, and leaning against the cabinets on the opposite side of the kitchen to where he was standing. At this point, keeping as much distance as possible was her biggest priority. Now that the Darkness was awake, two things could happen. She could either kill him or end up in bed with him, again. For the time being, she wasn't planning any of the above. 'I've been trying to contact her since I arrived. In fact, I came here at her request.'

He straightened up at her last words. He measured her with a surprised gaze, only to relax again a moment later.

'You don't look like I imagined you... And I know Laura only asked one person for help... The Witch, the Old Witch... ' he hesitated at the last words, feeling that they were too fairytale-like, even for his own supernatural background.

'Well... maybe I'm holding up well for my age... or maybe I'm younger than the rumours say...' she smiled crookedly, clenching her fingers dangerously tightly on her cup. She didn't like it when anyone but Luisa brought up the subject, but it amused her that both sentences were completely true. She was sure they could both hear the quiet crackle of the mug breaking. She herself, however, hardly felt it when pieces of it slammed into her palm and the hot, thick liquid spilled over her skin.

He, instead, jumped to her before the porcelain had time to fall to the floor and the first drops of blood appeared on her hand, mixing with the coffee. It was only then that she felt the pain and looked at her palm, now in his, much larger hand. A piece of the cup was lodged in her flesh and looked almost like bone. Derek dragged her hand under the cold water, rinsing off the remnants of the drink, he wanted to clean the wound when she stopped him.

'No, it will bleed harder. I can't heal like you...' she looked at him, feeling the blood drain from her face a little too fast for her liking. ' I have to go to the hospital to get it stitched up.'

'I'll drive you,' he announced, and his expression left no room for objection. She could sense the waves of guilt beating from him, although she knew perfectly well that the Darkness was one responsible for the accident. On the other hand, the latter had awakened in her precisely because of Derek's presence, so she decided to accept his help.

The hospital was not particularly crowded at this hour, and they were received at the reception desk by a beautifully smiling woman in her early forties, with long black hair and clearly Hispanic roots. When her gaze fell on the patient's arm, still held up by Derek, her smile disappeared but she remained professionally calm. She led them both to the treatment room, where she gently but firmly persuaded the man to let go of his companion's hand and examined the wound. She summoned a doctor to stitch up the cut while she busied herself cleaning the wound. Charlotte felt her head slowly start to spin. The Darkness had raised the pressure of her blood, causing her to bleed much more profusely than she should have. She could see the grey-green eyes staring back at her and the dark brown eyes full of calm. As her head began to droop she noticed a badge, pinned to the nurse's chest, and it read: Melissa McCall.

'You are Scott's mum... ' at her words the man's head popped up almost imperceptibly as he changed the object of his previous observations.

The woman was taken aback but quickly confirmed, and you could see the pride in her face as she thought about her son. She asked how they knew her son, but the witch was no longer able to answer, removing herself into blissful unconsciousness. Derek did it for her, explaining that she was a history teacher at the school the boy attended. He had done a pretty thorough interview on her, and now the opportunity had come to find out more about the teenager he was interested in as well.

When she woke up, she noticed that Derek was still alert at her bedside, but no one from the medical staff was present. Almost immediately he heard a change in her breathing and rose from his chair and ran his fingers over her forehead, checking her temperature.

'You've been away for a while. The doctor said I can take you out of here, but he needs to have another look at you first. You've lost a lot of blood.'

She sighed and nodded. Melissa appeared almost immediately, smiling again and full of warmth. Charlotte liked her a lot, and a strange feeling, a little like longing, filled her heart. Together they completed the necessary paperwork, after which the nurse escorted them to the hospital exit and said goodbye.

There was an awkward silence in the car again, which Derek only broke when he followed his companion into her house.

'You know Laura's dead...' he quietly announced, returning to the subject interrupted by the accident.

'I hoped I was wrong...' she lowered her head, crushed by the thought that maybe what happened to the girl was because she was the one who was late.

'I have to find the culprits... It's the Hunters, the Argents... Their presence is no coincidence, and they have hunted our family before... ' she could hear the anger growing in his voice, but somewhere underneath it was piercing another feeling that she couldn't name.

'I can help you, but surely you know that this is not our only problem. In this forest ' she pointed her finger out of the window. 'There's an Alpha prowling around who bit my student. We have to take care of him too, because I have a feeling that this is only the beginning...'

They sat in the kitchen for a long time, talking about recent incidents and twists of events. They tried to come up with a plan, but they still had too little data. They decided, for the time being, to focus on the teenager who had acquired the furry problem, surely his person was closely linked to at least one issue they both needed to address. Charlotte explained to the man that, while it was true that she was aware of the existence of beings like him, she would not be able to help the boy master the necessary skills. She herself had too much trouble controlling her own anger. She could see the questions lurking in Derek's eyes, questions he hadn't asked and she was eternally grateful for that.

They talked until dawn, and when he left, she felt a little less alone and terrified of the threat that was approaching.

20. January 2011 - Thursday

Nothing interesting had been happening since the beginning of the week, which on the one hand was relaxing, but on the other hand put her in a state of nervous anticipation. Charlotte spent almost all of her free time in the city library browsing through the stock of older and newer editions of the Beacon Hills Chronicle, the local newspaper. Somewhere deep inside her was the ingrained conviction that the whole story ran deeper than just the events of the last month.

Of particular note were the articles from six years ago about the Hale house fire. She remembered vividly that she'd sent Luise here at the time to embrace all the things that would overrun the two orphaned werewolves - the only members of the family who were away from the house at the time of the fire. It was her cousin who organised the funerals and arranged all the paperwork to send the siblings to New York so they could start a new life there, unharmed by the ghosts of the past. As you can see, however, these measures were of little use, as they both returned to their hometown and Laura was murdered.

She called her cousin to ask if she remembered any details relating to the whole affair, to which the latter answered her very laconically, but gave one clue - Peter Hale. Derek's uncle had survived the fire, although what condition he was in could hardly be called life. Charlie went to the Long Term Care Unit to see if the facts were as Luise had told her. Unfortunately, the man really was in a deep catatonia and although she was not allowed to visit him, which only family members were entitled to do, she managed to get a glimpse of him through the glass in the door to his room. His effaced figure, squeezed into a wheelchair and facing the window onto the courtyard, looked like a ragdoll, completely inert. The witch seemed to remember him, from her last visit to the town, as a tall, handsome lad who always had some mischievous, sarcastic comment to make. She wasn't fond of him at the time, he seemed overconfident, but the deeply catatonic state he was in depressed her. No one deserved such a fate. Her musings at the door of the hospital room were interrupted by a red-dyed nurse with an unpleasant expression on her face, chasing her out of the corridor, as only relatives were allowed in this part of the facility. Charlotte planned to make excuses, to lie, to say she was family, or that she was lost, but the woman didn't let her get a word in edgewise and simply pushed her out to the reception desk, and practically threw her out.

She was also trying to find some sort of clue as to what might have drawn Laura to Beacon Hills. The girl on the phone hadn't said anything specific, other than that someone else might have survived the fire, but Charlie didn't suspect it was Peter. He wouldn't have been able to do anything. Unfortunately, she hadn't found anything in any of the local news reports over the past six months that could be a lure for werewolves, or at least minimally linked to their presence in the area. The same was true of the Hunters, who had most likely arrived in town exactly when she did.

The week would probably have passed without much disruption had it not been for an incident in one of her Thursday classes. She had just been recounting the story of General Carter when one of her favourite students, a quiet, petite yet tall, pale-faced blonde, fell from her chair and had a seizure. Charlotte immediately recognised an epileptic seizure, all the luck Sharon had in time to warn her that such a situation could happen.

The students, however, were not prepared for this. They rushed towards their colleague to watch what was happening, while someone shouted for them to put something between her teeth. The witch was shaken with indignation; young people are not taught anything these days.

'Stand back! ' she shouted. ' Greenberg ' she pointed her finger at one of the boys ' call an ambulance. ' She knelt by the girl, placing her on her side and holding her head so that the girl did not hit anything. 'Stilinski, run to the secretariat, tell them what happened. Erica, you are safe, everything is fine. Relax' she had no idea if talking to the girl would change anything, but it certainly couldn't hurt and was helping herself.

Once the girl had been taken away by the nurses and everyone had calmed down she realised she had made one mistake. She failed to notice that half of the students had their phone camera lenses pointed at them and were recording the whole incident. She also didn't have time to order them to delete the footage before one of them uploaded the video online.

After that lesson, she stormed into the staff room like a thunderstorm. She hurled thunderbolts left and right and demanded a meeting about bulying with the educators and principal. An epileptic seizure did not look pleasant, and the one she had just witnessed was particularly violent. She couldn't let the girl who was condemned to them become the laughing stock of the school for this.

After lessons she went to the hospital and met Mr and Mrs Reyes - Erica's parents. They were very grateful to her for the care and attention given to their daughter, but did not seem to understand the gravity of the problem that the footage of such an attack could cause to be leaked online. They did not know how much an image on social media meant to modern teenagers.

The teacher sat by the girl's hospital bed for a while, trying to lift her spirits. The blonde, however, shut down and cried the whole time, already knowing what she looked like during her last attack and realising that the whole school knows it too.

21st January 2011 - Friday

Charlotte had just entered the staff room to make herself some coffee, before her first lesson of the day, when she bumped straight into the back of none other than Scott McCall, talking to Coach Finstock.

'What do you mean you can't play the game tommorow night? ' the teacher asked, crooking playfully.

'I mean I can't play the game tomorrow night' the boy completely ignored her, although she suspected that he might simply not have sensed that she had just collided with his backpack, from which dangled a lacrosse stick.

'You can't wait to play the game tomorrow night?' Bobby corrected him, crossing his arms over his chest and leaning against the table where the redhead sat, watching the exchange of words carefully.

-'No, I can't play the game tomorrow night' Scott uttered each word very clearly, emphasising the 'not'.

'I'm not following' the man announced, squinting his eyes suspiciously.

'I'm having some personal issues.' wriggled the teenager, glancing at Charlie, who was pretending to read a book. Only after a moment did she realise she was holding it upside down and turned it to its correct position with all haste.

'Like what? Is it a girl?' Bobby probably felt like laughing, he never cared about the school drama of his students.

'No.'

'Is it a guy?' he pursued the subject further, it was clear he was keen for his pupil to play in the upcoming match."you know our goalie Danny is gay' he announced, as if that changed anything.

'I know, Couch. But that's not it' Scott was confused, beginning to wonder where the conversation was actually going.

'You don't think Danny's a good looking guy?' didn't let up on the teacher. Charlotte was having serious trouble holding back her laughter. She was amused by the situation, although she was definitely glad that the student had taken her advice seriously and was trying to wriggle out of participating in a dangerous venture.

'No, Danny's good looking. But I like girls.' Scott got tangled up in his own statement, then returned to the subject, exasperated. 'And that's not it anyway...'

'Is it drugs? Are you doing meth? My brother was hooked on meth. You should have seen what it did to his teeth, all rotter and cracked.' he squirmed and started making strange gestures around his mouth, trying to show what he meant. 'It was disgusting. He was a mess.'

'What happened to him? ' Scott was concerned, the redhead teacher perked up her ears, equally curious about the tragic story.

'He got veneers. They look perfect now. ' the coach announced, as if nothing had ever happened. - Is that it? You're worried about getting hurt?' He asked, as if the thought had suddenly enlightened him.

'No, I'm just having some issues with...' the teenager sighed heavily. 'Agression.'

'Well that's exactly why you play lacrosse' the teacher tapped his finger on the student's chest, getting serious. ' Problem solved.'

'Couch, I can't play the game' the female teacher wanted to back him up, to say something that would convince the coach, but he didn't allow anyone to get into words.

'Listen, McCall. Part of playing first line is taking on the responsibility of being the first line in the game. If you can't shoulder that responsibility then you're back on the bench until you're ready.'

"If I don't play the game you're going to take me off first line?' the boy was in disbelief.

'Play the game, McCall' the coach cut off all objections and shooed the pupil out of the staff room. 'Don't talk back, he's one of my best players and aggression is a big part of the sport,' he announced, fixing his slightly arched eyes on his new colleague and pouring himself a coffee.

Charlie shrugged her shoulders, heard the bell ring and left to get to her classroom before the students. An unpleasant shiver ran down her spine and the hair on the back of her neck stood up. She had the feeling that someone was watching her, but when she looked around the corridor, she saw no one but Allison Argent at one of the distant lockers. The girl nodded her head in greeting and ran off in the direction of the French class. The teacher took one more look around the corridor, shook her head, warding off any bad feelings, then headed off in her own direction, wondering what Scott would do if he couldn't convince the coach to pull him away from tomorrow's game.

They had just been discussing Civil War issues and she quizzed Lydia Martin and Scott under the table, having them each write down the names of commanders and the strengths of both sides of the conflict. The girl was completing the Confederate section of the chart, while the boy was trying to write something about the Union. The teacher was struck by the words of a student with reddish-blonde hair.

'Why is there a rumor going around that your'e not playing tomorrow?' Speaking while writing clearly didn't bother her, which couldn't be said for Scott, who gnashed his teeth and rolled his eyes.

'Becouse I'm sort of... not.'

'I think you sort of ARE' the girl accentuated, measuring him with an angry stare. 'Especially when you brutally injure my boyfriend by ramming into him.'

'He brutally injured ramming into me.' the werewolf announced, looking at Lydia in disbelief.

'Jackson's going to play Saturday' the girl announced, looking defiantly at her interlocutor. 'But he's not goint to be at peak. I prefer my boyfriend at peak performance' she measured the black-haired man with a glance, raising her eyebrow significantly. The teacher almost choked on her coffee, finding that the behaviour of today's youth was definitely beyond her competence.

'Okay...'

'See, I date the captain of a winning lacrosse team' the girl continued. 'If they start off the season losing, I date the captain of a losing lacrosse team. I don't date losers. You understand how that works?'

'Losing on game isn't going to kill anyone.' the teenager raised his voice menacingly, at which Charlie rose from her chair, scrubbing loudly to drown out his words and get the attention of the rest of the class. 'In fact, it might save someone.'

'Fine. Don't play. We'll probably win anyway. We'll go put after like we're planning. I'll introduce Allison to all the other hot players on the team. And while she gets the attention she deserves, Scott McCall can stay home surfing the net for porn' after these words, Lydia put down her chalk and sat down in her seat, leaving her collegague and teacher under the blackboard, completely unable to find any words.

Charlotte ran her gaze over the blackboard, turned her eyes to the boy and announced:

'You're not even close to solving this task, Scott... Sit down' as much as she wanted to, she couldn't give him any more time to complete the chart and give him a good grade. He had far too much on his mind.

'Tell me about it.'

When the lesson was over, she set off towards the staff room to make herself another coffee that day, but stopped in mid-step at the sight of the police talking to the headmaster. As she listened for a moment, it became clear that they were going to impose a curfew for underage civilians. She smiled, finding that this was a very sensible decision, although she thought it should be in force all year round in this town, given the creatures that could prowl after dark.

The smile fell from her face when her gaze fell on two, very particular students who were eavesdropping on the same conversation as her. Their faces did not bode well. As she stepped around the corner, intent on stopping and confronting the boys she noticed that Stiles had disappeared somewhere and Scott was talking to Allison. She decided not to disturb the teenagers, hoping her gut was wrong.

'So Lydia's introducing you to everyone?' Scott asked the dark-haired girl, watching the pair of teenagers who were just walking away from them.

'Yeah, she's been so unbelievalby nice. Usually the populat girls are totally evil when I move to a new place. But she's making it really easy for me' replied Allison, completely unaware of her friend's conspiracy.

'I wonder why...'

'Maybe she gets how much being the New Girl can suck.'

The teenager's gaze fell on the piece of cloth the girl was holding in her hands and he recognised it as the jacket with which Derek had lured him into the woods on Friday night.

'Where did you get that?' He asked.

'My jacket? It was in my locker. I think Lydia brought it back from the party. She has my combination...'

'Did she say she brought it back? Did someone give her the jacket?' the boy's voice became insistent.

'Like who?' the girl was surprised, not understanding the violent reaction of the interlocutor.

'Like Derek.'

'Your friend?' Allison specified.

'He's not my friend. How much did you talk to him when he drove you home?'

'Not much at all' she replied, feeling unsure.

'What did you tesay?'

'You know... Mrs Benoit... ' she started, but after a moment she changed her mind and announced, turning on her heel. 'Sorry, but I have to get to my next class. Can we talk later?'

When he arrived at his destination, under an old burnt-out house, next to the border of the reserve, he jumped off his bike and threw it on the ground, furious. He looked around, but it was a strange, metallic smell that caught his attention. The teenager turned his gaze to where the smell seemed to be stronger and saw freshly dug earth. Very suspicious. Like a fresh grave.

When he lifted his gaze, he heard a sound, the beating of someone's heart. He saw Derek enter the crumbling porch, completely calm and unhurried, entirely different from before. This time without a jacket, dressed only in a grey long-sleeved v-neck and jeans.

'Stay away from her! She doesn't know anything!' shouted the teenager, trying to add to his animus.

'What if she doeas?' Derek knew immediately that the boy was talking about the daughter of the Hunters. He was the same way at his age, he didn't care about anything going on around him except his own business. 'You think your little buddy Stiles can Google werewolves and now you've got all the answers? Or has the Witch's good advices strengthened your conviction?' He asked in a tart tone, walking over to Scott and bending down to pick up his rucksack, lying right next to his bike. 'You don't get it yet, but I'm looking out for you. Think about what coud happen. You're on the field. The aggresion takes over. And you shift in front of everyone' Derek's gaze examined the stick he was holding. 'Allison, your mother, your friend...' he pushed the teenager with the stick, making him even more angry. 'And when they see you everything falls apart' he announced, breaking the net with his claws and showing it to the boy, very visually emphasising his words. He threw the stick up in the air, knowing Scott would catch it easily.

When the boy lifted his gaze from above the net, in which three oblong holes, made by the claws of the older werewolf, were peering through, that one was gone. He had disappeared completely suddenly and silently, as he had done every time so far.

Scott, furious, returned home, where he waited impatiently for Stiles, whom he had called. When his friend burst through the door, he didn't even say hello.

'What did you find? How did you find it? Where did you find it?' he could barely catch his breath between words, his eyes wide open and his hands flying around his figure like helicopter propellers. 'And yeah, I've had a lot of Adderall.' He tried to calm down seeing the look on the werewolf's face.

'I found something at Derek Hale's,' Scott announced, suddenly calm.

'Are you kidding? What?'

'Something's buried there. I smelled blood.'

'That's awesome! I mean that's terrible. Whose blood?'

'That's what I need you to help me find out. And when we do, we're going to help your dad nail Derek for the murder' the teenage werewolf was determined and deadly serious. 'And then, you and Mrs Benoit are going to help me figure out how to play lacrosse without changing. Becaouse there's no way I'm not playing that game'. He stressed, tying the last string, in the lacrosse stick net he was repairing.

He put the stuff down on the bed and followed his friend out of the room. They got into a blue jeep together and headed to the hospital so Scott could compare the smell he had smelled in the woods with the one of the half of the corpse found by the police.

After visiting the hospital morgue, Scott confirmed his belief that he had smelled the girl's blood under the Hale house. This could only mean that Derek was indeed the murderer and had buried the remaining half of the corpse. He returned to Stiles, they embraced the shovels for each other and drove into the woods.

Night had fallen by now, and they waited patiently outside the mysterious werewolf's house for him to move somewhere. As it turned out, they didn't have to wait particularly long, because just half an hour after their arrival, the man drove out of the woods, in his black Camaro. The boys weren't particularly curious about where he had gone; instead, they had to hurry, in case he should return.

'Something's different' stated Scott, stopping in mid-step.

'Different how?' whispered Stiles, trying to hide the fear growing inside him.

'I don't know...' stated the werewolf, shrugging his shoulders. 'Let's get this over with.' He said, poking the shovel into the fresh earth.

The hole they had dug already reached their waist. Scott wiped the sweat from his forehead with his sleeve, impatient. Waving the shovels had already taken them too long, and the landowner could return at any moment.

'This is taking too long' he said lowly.

'Just keep going'

'What if he comes back?' He asked his friend.

'Then we'll run away,' replied Stiles, continuing to wave the spade, the ground spilling out in all directions.

'What if he catches us?'

'I have a plan for that. You run one way, I run the other. Whoever he catches first? Too bad.'

'I hate that plan' the black-haired boy said, cringing at his friend's words. He started to dig faster, every now and then casting nervous glances towards the road.

'Stop! Stop!' shouted Stiles suddenly as his shovel hit something that was definitely no longer soil. He crouched down and began to rake away the remnants of the ground with his hands, revealing a black sack, tied with rope. He began to untie the knots, but his fingers were already slick from the cold night air. They were shaking, also from fear at the thought of what they would discover.

Scott crouched down to help him, but the nervousness of their movements made the task very difficult. Eventually they managed to untie the last knot and unravel the fabric of the bag.

Stiles shouted and jumped out of the pit, immediately followed by the werewolf. They fixed a horrified gaze on the body that emerged from the sack. Where they expected to see the girl's head, however, there was the head of a dead wolf, menacingly exposing its fangs, with glassy eyes staring back at them.

'What the hell is that?'

'It's a wolf...' stated Scott with disbelief in his voice.

'I can see that! I thought you said you smelled blood? As in human blood?'

'I told you something was different.'

'This doesn't make sense' Stiles stated, looking around as if searching for any clue.

'We gotta' get out of here.'

'Help me cover this up,' agreed his friend huskily, but froze, reaching for his shovel. His gaze stopped on a lone purple flower growing out of the ground near the hole they had dug in the ground. He walked over to the plant and grabbed it, and it stayed in his hand, offering no resistance. It was the end of its stem, by now hidden in the mulch, that was tied with a string.

'What's wrong?' Asked Scott, by now busy, trying to cover the wolf's body with the bag.

'Do you see this flower?' the boy showed his friend a plant, held in his hand. 'I think it's a Wolfsbane.'

'How do you know that?'

'Haven't you ever seen The Wolf Man? Lon Chaney Jr.? Claude Rains?' after each piece of information mentioned, Scott shook his head in denial. 'The original classic werewolf movie! You are so unprepared for this.'

Stiles pulled at the plant, revealing more rope, emerging from under the mulch. He followed the rope, pulling more and more of it out, circling the wolf's grave. The trail it left behind formed a spiral. When the young werewolf finally tore his gaze away from his friend and looked down, he recoiled, terrified, for now, instead of a wolf, the glassy eyes of a girl were staring at him, the same one he had seen a few nights before, the night he had been bitten. When Stiles saw the boy's face, he also looked down.

'Shit!' The coil of rope fell out of his hands.

22. January 2011 - Saturday

They didn't have to wait long for the police to arrive, and yet, dawn found them at the burnt house. The search took much longer than they had anticipated.

The police had already managed to secure the area when a black Camaro pulled up to the property and Derek Hale, confused by the commotion, got out. Within moments he was surrounded by officers and handcuffed. He did not resist as they led him to a nearby police van. As the officers left to continue combing the area for more evidence, Stiles crept up to the police car, and slid into the front passenger seat. Scott watched everything, standing nearby, leaning against his friend's car.

Derek looked at the spastic boy, from under his pulled-down eyebrows.

'Just so you know, I'm nt afraid of you' the teenager declared, looking straight into the eyes of the werewolf, who at these words almost smiled, almost. Which made the boy strangely uneasy, despite the bars of the police car separating them. - Okay, maybe I'm. Doesn't matter. I just want to know something.' he turned his gaze out of the window, checking that none of the policemen interrupted him. - 'The girl you killed... She was a werewolf. But she was a different kind, wasn't she?'

He waited a moment for the man to confirm his words, but got no answer except a murderous stare.

'She could turn into an actual wolf. I know Scott can't do that. And I think you can't either. Is that why you 'Why are you so woried about me?' replied the man, drawing in the air deeply. It's your friend who's the problem. When he shifts on the field, what do you think they're going to do? Just keep cheering him on? I can't stop him from playing. But you can' he moved his face closer to the grating separating them, and the boy backed away, swallowing his saliva loudly, his throat moving violently. 'And trust me. You want to.'

At that moment, the front door of the police car opened and Stiles was forcibly dragged from the car. His father, the sheriff, pulling him by the arm, led him to Scott, who was standing nearby.

'What the hell do you think you're doing?' He asked in disbelief, although he was not particularly surprised by his son's actions.

'Just trying to help.'

'How about you help me understand exactly how you came across this?'

'We were looking for Scott's inhaler,' the teenager announced, sighing loudly as if everything was obvious.

'Which he dropped when?' The sheriff wanted to be more specific.

'The other night...'

'The other night when you came out to look for the first half of the body?' the man knew his son very well and knew what to expect.

'Yes!' He said, sticking his hands in his pockets, assuming a nonchalant pose.

'The night when you told me you were out alone and Scott was home?' Stilinski measured his son with his eyes.

'Yes! No!' He caught himself in his own mistake. 'Crap...'

'So you lied to me?'

'That depends on how you define lying.'

' I define it as not telling the truth. How do you define it?'

' Reclining your body in a horizontal position?' mumbled teenager.

' Get the hell out of here' the sheriff lost his patience.

That morning, just as Charlotte finally managed to roll out of bed and make her first pot of coffee, a knock sounded on her front door. She furrowed her brow, puzzled. So far the only people who had visited her were the courier she'd been expecting and Derek, who hadn't bothered knocking, just turning up at random times and rooms as if he'd teleported there. The knocking sounded again, a little more nervous and erratic.

With a mug in her hand and a book under her arm, she opened the front door to come face to face with a taller-than-her, skinny boy with cropped short dark hair and big brown eyes.

'Stiles...' she greeted him, raising one eyebrow and leaning against the doorframe. Cats tangled between her legs, clearly planning to appropriate her visitor when the opportunity arose.

' Mrs Benoit... ' he wheezed out, it was clear he was very nervous and had to run the short distance between his blue jeep, parked at the curb, and the steps of her porch. 'Scott ran away...'

' What do you mean he ran away?' she quipped, but didn't move from her spot. The full moon had passed, so the boy shouldn't be a threat to anyone.

'We found that girl's body at night, and I took that wolfsbane with me, and Scott felt bad because of it, and when I threw it away, he disappeared...' he threw the words out at machine-gun speed, and Charlotte had already lost her meaning halfway through his speech.

She made him go inside, brewed some calming herbs which she almost forcefully pressed into his hand, seated him at the kitchen table and told him to start again. Astra, the white cat, jumped into his lap and began to tickle, asking to be petted. The little wuss always knew when a person needed her presence and attention to calm down. Stiles plunged his bony fingers into her long, soft fur and took in air, holding it in his lungs for a moment. Charlotte was glad that the teenager was in control enough that she didn't have to use her magical and empathic abilities, she very much disliked influencing people directly.

'So there's a guy, Derek Hale, who lives in the woods, in this burnt-out house. Scott discovered that he was the one who killed this girl and buried her in his garden. He sniffed it out, like a police dog... ' Stiles told her everything that had happened that night, ending with the fact that he had hidden the string of aconite in his bagpack before the police arrived and, as he and his friend were on their way home, Scott felt unwell and disappeared before the other boy realised.

When he finished, there was a moment of silence in the kitchen. Charlotte was struggling to collect her thoughts. She knew the boys' conclusions were wrong, Derek wasn't a murderer, or at least hadn't killed his sister. Why his wolf's eyes were the colour of blue, indicating a killer, she had yet to find out, but that detail did not concern the present case. She measured the worried teenager with her eyes, assessing how much she should actually tell him. She decided to skirt the subject of her own acquaintance with the older werewolf and focus on the revelations about the grave. She wasn't sure if it was in fact Derek who had buried Laura there, though that was a rather odd ploy, especially as their family had their own tomb in the city cemetery.

She made Stiles wait a moment, then came out of the kitchen and dug through the contents of one of the cardboard boxes she still hadn't managed to unpack. She pulled a medium-sized box out of one of them and returned to the boy with it. As she set the package in front of him, he looked at her without understanding.

'It's a Polaroid, the type of camera that prints out pictures straight away,' she explained. 'I know everyone has cameras on their phones now, but I'd like you to use it. If you see something suspicious, a person, a place, a thing. Please take a picture and bring it to me at the earliest opportunity. You can also use your mobile phone for this purpose, but physical prints are very important to me.'

Charlotte had the feeling she could see the cogs turning in the boy's head. He was thinking about something intensely and finally smiled, but after a moment his face faded.

'You're the Witch that Derek told Scott about,' he announced, surprising her. 'He knows about you, and that means you're in danger...'

-'No more than you and your friend,' she corrected, not wanting to blow the whole thing out of proportion. 'I can take care of myself much better than the two of you.'

'And you are a Witch... What does that actually mean? Like a Witch? A sorceress? A fairy?' he queried.

'I think Witch is the best term, but rather very inflated. I can't throw fireballs or predict the future. Nothing like Harry Potter. I'm an ordinary person, just like you, only I know a little bit more' she didn't let the boy get a word in edgewise, she knew that otherwise they could lose the whole day. 'Let's get back to you, though. You put a man under arrest because he murdered a girl from the forest?' the boy nodded. 'She was buried under a wolfsbane spiral as a wolf?' he nodded again. 'You mean this Derek knows about Scott being a werewolf?'

'Derek is a werewolf himself. He's the one who bit and turned Scott,' he corrected.

'And he let himself be arrested without any resistance and is now sitting in a cell or being interrogated. Scott, on the other hand, is running around the woods, or the city, in uncertain condition? And he's going to play in a match that both I and the adult werewolf who transformed him asked him not to play in?'

A wide grin descended from Stiles' face as the boy realised the seriousness of the situation. He looked around the kitchen, and finally stopped his gaze on the blue eyes of Astra, whom he had been unconsciously stroking until now.

'It looks like this...'

The teenager had spent several hours in her house, carefully reconstructing the night's events when they had discovered Laura's body. The witch asked him to draw her exact layout of the spiral and the grave, which he did with great accuracy. All the while she wondered how the boy had obtained her address, which was quite disturbing, but she decided that it was not the most important thing on her to-do list. She considered going to the police station to see what was going on with Derek, but gave up the idea. The man had her phone number, so if he needed help he would probably call. It was better not to reveal to anyone that they knew each other.

As for the fact that Scott had disappeared somewhere. She decided not to worry about that. His wolf instincts were sure to tell him to hide and wait out the slight aconite poisoning he'd exposed himself to. He would probably come out of some burrow when he felt better. That's what she told Stiles too, so that he could calm down and go home.

Eventually, evening came and she headed out to the school's lacrosse game. She hoped that Scott had found his way back by now, even though she hadn't received any information about it. She squatted in the stands just behind the substitutes' bench and breathed a sigh of relief when she saw that the teenage werewolf had actually turned up for the game, all right.

'You going to try to convince me not to play?' Charlotte heard Scott's words, directed at his friend.

'I just hope you know what you're doing.'

'If I don't play I lose first line. And Allison.'

'Allison's not going anywhere. And it's one game which you don't have to plany...' tried to convince the skinny guy, following the witch's advice.

'I want to play.' I want to be on the team, I want to go out with Allison/ I want a semi-freaking normal life. Do you fet that?' the teenage werewolf was nervous, and his voice was taking on slightly weepy tones. The teacher understood the boy perfectly, but couldn't help him.

'I get it' Stiles stated, after a moment of silence. - Just try not to worry too much. while you're out there, all right? And try not to get angry.' ' he sat down next to his friend, his back to the pitch, and threw the teacher an apologetic look.

'Got it'

'Or stressed...'

'Got

'And don't worry about Allison being there. Don't think about her father tryin g to kill you'. this information was new to Charlotte, the boys hadn't revealed to her that they knew about the Hunters, let alone Chris Argent. 'Or Derek trying to kill you. Or the girl he killed. Or that you might kill someone...' he chuckled visibly festered, paying no attention to his friend's disbelieving, increasingly terrified gaze. 'If hunter doesn't kill you first.' he finally realised he had overreacted. 'I'll shut up now.'

Suddenly, a familiar voice rang out just above Charlotte's head, calling the name of a teenage werewolf. As the witch turned around, she noticed that the bench above was occupied by his mum - Melissa, whom she had met at the hospital. The woman recognised her almost immediately and smiled, asking about her injured arm. The teacher plunged into friendly conversation with her, but did not stop to mirror the crowd with her eyes. A little further up in the stands, she spotted Allison and an accompanying man around forty, who could be none other than Chris Argent, her father, Hunter.

'Scott,' Charlotte's observations were interrupted by the voice of Lydia Martin, who accosted the teenager. 'I just want you to remember one thing for tonight...' she aggressively pulled him towards her by his shirt, defiantly looking into his eyes. She was only able to do this because of her high heels, without which she was lower even than a witch. Stiles eyed the two with disbelieving eyes and stepped back.

'Winning isn't everything?' The black-haired boy asked uncertainly, to which Lydia laughed artfully.

'Nobody likes a loser,' she corrected, straightening the team jersey with the number 11 on it on his chest, then walked away to sit next to her new friend.

The witch listened with one ear as Melissa tried to explain to her the rules of the game, a game she herself wasn't fond of because, like Charlie, she preferred baseball. However, the redhead's attention was drawn to what was going on around her. She could feel the tension in the air and her gut told her that there was more to this evening than might appear at first glance. As the players ran out onto the pitch, Stiles, still sitting on the substitutes' bench, was approached by the sheriff, in informal dress, which meant he was not on duty.

'Hey, kiddo,' he greeted his son. 'Any chance you'll be seeing some action tonight?

'Action?' thought the boy. 'Definite posibility.'

The sheriff, seeing that the match was about to begin, took his seat next to Scott's mum, who introduced him to the young teacher as Noah, not knowing that they had already had the opportunity to get to know each other, in much less pleasant circumstances.

Right from the start, the match did not go Scott's way, as the other players constantly ignored him by passing the ball between themselves, not paying the slightest attention to him. At one point, even when the werewolf finally had the chance to take over the ball, he was violently pushed by the number 37 belonging to his own team. The aggressor scored a goal, but that didn't improve Scott's mood at all, nor that of his mum, who didn't applaud very eagerly the point scored. This was made worse by the fact that Allison had been persuaded by her friend to hold up a banner cheering Jackson Whittemore - the team captain who had scored the point. The werewolf obviously noticed this.

'This is not going to be good' A comment from Stiles, who was also watching everything closely, as was she, reached Charlotte.

From her seat she couldn't see the teenager's face, let alone his eyes, hidden behind the grille of his protective helmet, but she could feel the aggression building up in the air. It seemed that the players of the opposing team sensed it too, as they tried to avoid a direct confrontation with Scott. Charlie looked at the Argents with fear in her eyes, Chriss was leaning over her daughter saying something to her, but the witch was unable to hear what. She was troubled by the presence of the Hunter in the stands. An ordinary human could explain the strange events that had occurred in various ways, even telling himself he was delusional, but not the Hunter. The Hunter will know there is a werewolf on the pitch and will have to react.

The Cyclones' Beacon Hills team was losing by two points. The atmosphere in the stands was almost as tense as the one on the field, with little time left in the match. Lydia and Allison raised another banner in support of the captain, although the latter had an unhappy look on her face. The witch, however, had the strange feeling that this particular fact was not noticed by the werewolf. Teenagers had a strange ease in ignoring things that did not coincide with their view of reality at any given time.

The ball was in play again. The temperature had dropped enough that clouds of steam were escaping from the players' mouths. Scott couldn't stand the tension and jumped up to intercept the ball. He bounced his foot off the shoulder of a player from the opposing team, practically leaping over him, in an almost impossible acrobatics for an ordinary person. Without the slightest hitch, he dodged everyone standing in his way to the goal and scored. Charlotte began nervously biting the nail of her thumb, while everyone surrounding her jumped up in cheers. Including Stiles, who apparently, in a fit of joy, had forgotten what his friend's amazing display might entail.

The ball came back into play again, landing in the net of one of the MFH players - the opposing team - who froze as he came face to face with Scott. Charlie was well aware of what the boy must have felt at that moment, and his behaviour only reinforced her belief that her charge had started to lose his temper. His opponent threw the ball straight at Scott's racket, giving him the ball back. As he wolfed down another goal, the goalkeeper almost defended, but the ball, like a missile, went through his racket and landed in the goal. The score for both teams evened out with only 40 seconds left in the match.

'What? Did you see that?' disbelieved Melissa, but her face expressed happiness and pride.

Charlie didn't reply, staring with tension at the boy who was beginning to act like a trapped animal. He had already realised that he was no longer in control, but there was nothing he could do but continue playing.

The opponents finally got their act together, regaining their resonance, in their resolve not to allow number 11 to score another goal. They surrounded Scott, who paused, measuring them with his eyes. Stiles seemed to have finally got a grip too, and saw that his friend was unwell, as his face grew serious. As the opponents moved towards the werewolf, he swung, suddenly seemingly calmer, and threw the ball, which landed in the goal. Completely clean and effortless, at the last second of the match.

Spectators ran out onto the pitch, eager to congratulate the winning team. Stiles took a deep breath, but the witch's bad feeling did not leave. She remained in the stands and watched from her seat as Scott took off his glove and, with his back turned to everyone, examined his hand. Charlotte knew what he saw, claws instead of fingernails. Before anyone could get near him, he ran off the field to hide in the changing room and his girlfriend followed him, watched by her father.

Stiles stayed by Charlies side, trailing his eyes around her, studying everyone around him. Right next to her, the phone rang, snapping her out of her numbness. The sheriff answered, a look of displeasure on his face. As he hung up, his son rushed over to him, asking hundreds of questions a second.

'The results from the coroner came in. The body belongs to Laura Hale, she was killed by an animal. We have no grounds to detain the suspect any longer, so they released him. Stiles, be careful, the guy has a right to be mad at you, and he doesn't look nice,' Noah announced and walked off towards the car park, presumably to get back to work.

Stiles ran to the locker room, to relay the information to a friend, and Charlotte realised she had been left alone in the stands. She noticed Jackson Whittemore, the team captain, leaning over a glove raised from the grass, examining it carefully. A spasm of anxiety passed through her heart as she realised the evidence the teenager held in his hands. As he raised his head abruptly, she followed his gaze and noticed that not far from her, by the bleachers, stood Derek, measuring his gaze with the boy. However, the younger man quickly turned his head and walked away, while the older man headed towards her.

'Shall I drive you home?' He asked, which she found to be an extremely inappropriate introduction to the conversation, especially as her car was parked nearby and he had certainly seen it. Instead, she wasn't sure where his car was, since he must have arrived here immediately after his release from custody.

'I think it's better if we go in my car, I won't leave her in the car park all weekend,' she replied with a smile, at the thought of her Chevelle.

He nodded in agreement and, without even waiting for her, walked towards her car. Once they were on their way, she decided she wasn't going to let him stay silent the whole way, as she had last time.

'I heard you'd had a rough day...' she wanted to be gentle, she imagined how she would feel if she were in his shoes.

'Thanks to your students...' He sighed heavily, rubbing his hand over his tired face. Being in detention had not been a pleasant experience, and the fact that he had to identify the body of his sister, the last person close to him, only nailed him more.

'And just so you know... you didn't say a word about meeting them directly, I thought you were supervising Scott from afar... Stiles said... Do you live in your old house?' the question jumped out all by itself, she wanted to say something else.

'Yes, I haven't had time to find anything more appropiate, I'm looking for clues, keeping an eye on the teenagers... I think it's starting to get beyond me.'

She measured him carefully with her eyes, studying the shadows under his eyes and his pale skin.

'Do you even have water in there?' She asked, but got no answer. 'You know what... We'll go and get some of your things, and then go to my place, so that you at least have a chance to wash and eat properly. I don't believe it's particularly comfortable in detention...' she almost gasped for air, finishing the statement. She probably sounded in his ears like some desperate old maid who dreams of nothing more than dragging him to bed. She flushed from neck to forehead, but stubbornly stared at the road ahead of them, already entering the forest. She felt his calculating gaze on her for a moment.

'I think it's not the worst idea. To be honest, I'm dreaming of a hot shower,' he replied quietly, looking away. He hoped the girl wouldn't take him for a pervert just lurking to get into her bed, although, being completely honest with himself, he wouldn't mind if the evening ended that way.

Derek didn't even enter the crumbling house, announcing that he would follow her in his car, in which he had all the things he needed. She stopped in the driveway, indicating for him to park his Camaro in the garage.

As soon as she crossed the threshold, she sent him to the bathroom, which wasn't the best plan when she realised she hadn't given him a towel earlier. To make up for this mistake she tried to call out to him through the door, but he didn't hear her, most likely over the sound of the water, although she found this a little odd given his, surely, sensitive hearing. So she pressed the doorknob quietly, intending to leave the towel on the cupboard at the entrance. The sight, reflected in the mirror above the washbasin, however, stopped her in mid-step. She had never considered herself the voyeuristic type, yet the shapely silhouette indistinctly reflected in the foggy mirror made her stop breathing for a moment.

'Are you just admiring, or are you going to join me?' He asked, in a cheeky, confident voice, at the sound of which she jumped up and her heart stopped for a moment.

'If you want to repay me for staying the night, you'd better make breakfast tomorrow,' she replied, raising a mocking eyebrow and approaching him with a confident step. Her knees were soft, though she could already feel the Darkness taking over her again. She knew she shouldn't let it, that every time she gave in to it, the darkness around her heart grew stronger and she lost herself more and more. Usually she knew how to control it, but when she looked into his grey-green eyes she just wanted to go with the flow and let herself be carried away, to stop being stiff and closed in, eternally poised and cold, if only for a moment.

!PEGI +18!

After a moment of hesitation, she shed her clothes and pinned her long braid into a bun at the back of her head so that it wouldn't interfere with anything. Without waiting for a second invitation, she opened the shower door and took a step into the steamy, damp space that had previously seemed decidedly larger to her. For now almost the entire cubicle was filled with the muscular body of Derek Hale.

She looked up into his eyes bashfully, knowing that he could hear the rhythm of her heart quickening. She could hear the tinkling of her blood in her ears and knew that her face must be as red as a peony.

He smiled at her predatorily. He reached his hand behind her back, closing the glass door, then placed his palm on her hip. He turned her so that he could see her back and, with his soap-covered hands, began to massage her neck. She moaned in pleasure. Until now she hadn't realised how tense she had been all day. His hands were doing wonders with the tight muscles of her back and shoulders. In turn, he murmured with satisfaction, feeling her relax under his touch. Later, he let the water rinse away the suds and he began to cover the back of her neck and shoulders with kisses, marking a sensual trail with his lips.

With a strong hand, he signaled her to lean over, which she did, supporting herself with her hands against the tiled wall. They were cool to the touch, in contrast to the warm streams of water running down from the shower. She felt his hands move from her buttocks down her thighs to her front, and his fingers quickly found her most sensitive spot. She trembled and leaned heavier against the wall, her swollen nipples rubbing against the cold tiles adding to the pleasure. She sighed, and almost without her knowing it, her hips moved back a little, leaning against the man behind her.

Derek growled feeling her skin touch his. He was tensed to the limit and his member trembled in anticipation. The werewolf, however, was able to control himself, certainly more so than last time. In the shower, her scent was not so intense and don't take away his senses. So he gently massaged her labia and clitoris, relishing the gentle trembling of her body, betraying how much pleasure he was giving her.

'More.' She growled, in a voice a little deeper than usual, in which he could hear the command.

He wasn't going to resist. He moved his hands to her hips, positioning her in a way that was more comfortable for him, and thrust into her in one smooth motion. She moaned loudly, then bit her lips hurting herself. He could smell the blood and excitement in the humid air.

'More.' She repeated hoarsely and pushed her hips against him to force him to move. So he did. With one hand he held her hip, stabilising her and preventing her from slipping on the wet floor, while with the fingers of the other he began to circle her clit, making her moan again.

Streams of water splashed against her bent back, her fingers trying unsuccessfully to clamp down on the shower wall. And he was moving inside her, filling her whole, leaving no room for anything other than sensation. She could hear quiet growls coming from his throat, answered by her whimpers, full of requests for more.

After a while, however, the Darkness grew impatient. She needed to take control of the situation. Darkness was not a submissive female, she demanded and took, asking for no one's opinion or consent. Not Charlies and not Dereks.

The woman pulled her hands away from the wall, grasping the man's hands. His fingers froze on her clit, in anticipation. She growled, straightened up and separated from him. Then she turned to look him in the face. Her eyes glowed an unnatural green, mesmerising him and making him excited even more, if that was even possible. She smiled predatorily, as if she was reading his mind. She wrapped her arms around his neck, and all his muscles tensed in anticipation. She jumped up, entwining her thighs around his hips, then one of her hands fell from his neck to his chest and lower to his stomach, stopping between her own thighs, clenched on his dick. With her hand she directed him to her opening and sank her hips down.

They both let out a moan full of pleasure. His hands gripped her ass to support her weight. His fingers delved into the soft flesh causing a pleasurable ache.

For a moment the conscious part of her mind registered that the water flowing from the shower was becoming less warm, but the heat of their bodies completely dampened the chill.

They did not have dinner that evening.

!END OF PEGI +18!

Allison walked into the dark corridor, in search of Scott; behind her, in the distance, she could hear the joyous cheers of the fans and the winning team, but the locker room was engulfed in silence. She stopped, noticing the boy's helmet on the floor. She walked through the door to the locker room, but stopped again when glass clattered under her shoes, noticing that one of the mirrors above the sinks was shattered.

'Scott?' She wanted to call out to him, but her voice trapped in her throat. The atmosphere of the room was heavy and strangely frightening. For a moment the teenager felt like she was in a horror movie, but she quickly got herself under control and moved forward again.

She had the impression that she was being watched, but as soon as she turned around, her gaze met only darkness and more lockers emerging from it. She swallowed hard.

'Scott' this time her voice was only slightly louder than a whisper. Her heart thumped anxiously against her ribs and her stomach twisted into a tight knot. She moved forward, determined, convinced that she heard something behind the wall, in the part of the locker room where the showers were.

As she emerged from the corner, she caught sight of Scott. Still in his playing attire, he stood leaning against the wall, his back turned to her. He was panting heavily.

'Are you all right, Scott?' She grabbed the boy's arm and turned him to face her. His face was a little frightened, but apart from that he looked perfectly normal. 'You scared me, are you all right?'

'Sorry. Just felt really light-headed for a sec' he quickly came up with an excuse, calming down more and more.

'Maybe it's the adrenaline' the girl smiled, happy that her affection was okay. 'You were pretty amazing aut there.'

'Thanks. And sorry for acting completely weird today.

'It's okay. I can handle weird.' she smiled broadly, thinking about the fact that she had never spent even a year in one place in her entire life, and that her parents are arms dealers. It was quite strange, even though the business was perfectly legal. She's definitely going to experience how a boy she likes deals with stress.

'To be totally honest you make me kind of nervous,' Scott admitted, slightly embarrassed.

'I do?'

'Kind of really nervous.' they both laughed. 'I just want to make sure I get my second chance.'

'You already have it' she looked into his eyes. 'I'm just waiting for you to take it.' she smiled flirtatiously and took a few steps away from him, waiting for his reaction, a little embarrassed by her directness.

Scott approached her, looking closely at her face for a few seconds, then brought his lips close to hers and kissed the girl.

At exactly the same moment, a breathless Stiles rushed into the changing room and stopped in mid-step. He didn't have the slightest intention of interrupting his friend, so he stepped back, hiding behind one of the lockers. Then he poked his head out to see if the situation had occurred to him.

'I need to get back to my dad,' Allison interrupted the kiss, slightly embarrassed but happy. She turned away from Scott and spotted his friend. She nodded to him in greeting and left the room. A smile wandered on her lips and her step was light.

The black-haired teenager, on the other hand, froze with a blissful smile on his lips and unseeing eyes. His friend approached him, but remained silent, knowing that no words would pierce the cloud of happiness surrounding the young werewolf.

'I kissed her...'

'I saw.'

'She kissed me...'

'I saw that too.' Stiles had to be patient as his friend was practically drunk with happiness. 'It's pretty good, huh?'

'I don't know how, but I controlled it. I pulled it back. Maybe I can do this. Maybe it's not that bad' his voice was exasperated and his eyes still couldn't focus on anything specific.

'Yeah, we should talk later then.' Stiles announced, patting his friend on the shoulder and wanting to leave. He decided not to shatter this moment of blissful happiness, especially after the last tense days, which had not gone his way.

'What?' Scott stopped him, sensing the tension in his friend.

'The medical examiner looked at the other half of the body we found' he revealed after a moment's silence. Scott let his friend know to keep talking. 'I take it simple. Medical examiner determines killer of girl to be animal ot human. Derek is human not animal. Derek not killer. Derek let out of jail.

'Are you kidding?' couldn't believe the other teenager.

'No, and here's the bigger kick in the ass. My Dad ID's the dead girl. Both halves. Her name was Laura Hale'

'Hale?' It seemed that Scott didn't understand, or didn't want to understand.

'Derek's sister,' he specified huskily, and a slight smile appeared on his face, expressing disbelief at such coincidences.