Author's notes:

I did my best to pick up where I left off. Luckily, I had half of this chapter already written beforehand, so it was easy to pick it back up. Well, I say easy, but I definitely fumbled through this. I hope this chapter is up to the previous chapters' standards!

She woke with a start; a flash of blue eyes the last thing she remembered from the dream. She was drenched with sweat as she gasped for breath.

Maeve turned her lamp on, fishing through her nightstand drawer for her dream journal. She quickly jotted down what she could remember as hazy visions of her childhood friend danced around her mind.

She took a gulp from the water bottle she kept by her at night and fell back into an uneasy sleep, forgetting everything she had just dreamed.

"Here's where we found the den," Stiles pointed down to his tablet. "It's right in the middle of the hiking trails."

"Well, that could narrow it down. Coyotes travel on fixed trails." Allison said, taking a closer look at the tablet. "But I think you're right about her not going back to the den." She locked eyes with Scott.

Sighing, she continued, "Coyotes don't like wolves," she said, matter of fact. "And they're really smart. If they don't want to be heard, they actually walk on their toes." She moved her gaze to Stiles as he made a face.

"Coyotes tiptoe?" Stiles asked incredulously.

Allison rolled her eyes, "They tiptoe."

Stiles mouthed a 'what', looking at Scott in disbelief. Just then, the bell rang loudly.

They all looked up at the obnoxious sound.

"I got to go, but send me the pinned location," Allison said, dashing out of the room.

Stiles made his way to a desk that had a free seat behind it. He was actually a little worried. Maeve didn't answer the door that morning, and she also wasn't answering her phone, but he made sure to sit his stuff at the desk behind him in case she still decided to come. He could tell she liked sitting behind him, and he was sure she didn't realize, but he knew she almost always had a hand touching him. He wasn't sure what to think of that, but it made him feel a lot calmer when she did.

Yet another thing he needed to investigate about her.

He hated that he'd only known Maeve for two days and she'd already wormed her way into his life. He was supposed to be investigating her, digging into her past, trying to get dirt on her; not developing a crush on her.

He was pretty convinced that there was something going on with her, whether she was an actual creature, or a creature was involved with her father's death. He'd been trying to research into her father, but he could not find a single reference of him anywhere besides the fact that he was murdered.

If it weren't for the picture he saw with his own eyes, Stiles was pretty sure he wouldn't have believed the man ever existed.

The guy was a free-lancer of some sort, he didn't have a real job that Stiles could steal records from. All he had to go on was what was in the file he illegally copied from his dad's office. Maybe after all of this werecoyote business, he'd actually have some free time to deep dive into everything.

"Alright everyone, let's get started," Mr. Yukimura announced just as Stiles heard a crash outside the classroom door. It flung open, revealing a very disheveled Maeve.

"So sorry, Mr. Yukimura," she apologized out of breath. She was hunched over, her hands on her knees as she gasped for breath.

"You okay, Maeve?" the teacher asked concerned.

"Yeah, yeah," she replied in a high tone that definitely didn't sound okay as she waved a hand around. "I woke up late and had to run here."

"Uh-," Mr. Yukimura paused, shaking his head. "Alright, why don't you take a seat."

"Yeah-" she gasped for breath.

"Seat-" gasp.

"Sounds good," she huffed a breath and looked around the room for an empty desk.

Stiles gave her a smile and nodded his head behind him before turning around and grabbing his bag off of the desk.

"Oh my God, I love you," she whispered as she plopped down in her desk. He couldn't help the flush he felt at her words. The thoughts running through his head as he listened to her try to catch her breath were most definitely indecent.

He grabbed his water bottle from his bag and passed it back to her. She locked eyes with him, and he noticed her flushed cheeks and the whisps of hair that had fallen out of her bun. She looked absolutely breathtaking as she flashed him a big smile.

"Oh, I definitely love you," she accepted the bottle, chugging half of it in one go, and he was surprised she had enough oxygen in her lungs to do that.

He heard Scott chuckle to his right, and ignored him, already knowing what his friend was thinking. Stupid werewolf senses.

"Alright, we were just talking about internment camps and prisoners of war," Mr. Yukimura began class. Stiles was quickly trying to calm his racing thoughts. "There's a passage in our reading that I'd like to go over in more detail. Who would like to come up and read aloud for us?"

There was a pause, and Stiles fiddled with his pencil, avoiding eye contact in the hopes that he didn't get chosen.

"Mr. Stilinski, how about you?" Stiles glanced up.

"Oh, um," he hesitated. "maybe – maybe someone else could."

He felt more than heard Maeve adjust herself in the desk behind him.

"Everyone participates in my class, Mr. Stilinski," Mr. Yukimura stated.

Just as Stiles was about to get up, he heard a sweet voice. "I don't mind reading."

He felt Maeve rest a hand on his shoulder, instantly calming him down. There it was again.

"I'm sorry, Maeve, but I've made up my mind," their teacher replied sternly.

Stiles sighed heavily, and before he got up, he felt Maeve move her hand to the side of his neck. She rubbed a thumb across it affectionately, and he could have sworn he heard her voice in his head say 'It'll be okay. I'm right here.'

Stiles made his way to the podium, leaning over the book and whispering to himself.

Maeve could feel the anxiety rolling off of him in waves and the sheer amount of it was worrying her. Her knees were bouncing in anticipation, and it felt like something was happening, she just didn't know what.

He was visibly sweating, gripping the edge of the podium tightly as he squinted his eyes down at the book. He was blinking rapidly, as if he couldn't believe what he was seeing.

He started breathing heavily, and Maeve was positive he was having a panic attack. He looked up from the room, not seeing anything in front of him, his eyes darting everywhere around the room.

"Stiles are you okay?" she asked, getting up from her desk. He was still breathing heavily when she made it to his side at the stand.

Maeve looked to Mr. Yukimura, who was standing by his desk with a look of concern. She moved her eyes to Scott, who was already out of his desk and on Stiles' other side.

"I think I should take him to the nurse's office," Scott said to their teacher. Mr. Yukimura nodded in answer, waving him out of the room.

"I'm coming, too," Maeve declared to Scott.

He furrowed his brows in hesitation.

"No, it's okay, I've got him-"

"I'm sorry, Maeve, but Scott can get him to the nurse," Mr. Yukimura interrupted. "Why don't you take a seat."

Maeve glared at the teacher, who jerked back from the seething anger in her eyes. She turned to glare at Scott in turn, making him pause. She gave a loud, obvious huff of annoyance as she left Stiles's side. She trudged back to her desk and plopped back into her seat.

She watched Scott cart Stiles away; Stiles who was obviously having a panic attack and there was nothing she could do nothing about it.

Stiles stumbled into the bathroom, knocking into the doorframe.

Was he dreaming again? Did he even wake up that morning? Or was it like yesterday where he was dreaming while awake? Is Maeve still sitting behind him? Surely, she'd be able to wake him up, she seems to pick up on what he's feeling, so surely, she's feeling his overwhelming fear rolling off of him, right?

"Stiles, look at me man," he could hear Scott, but his words seemed distant. "Is this- is this a panic attack?"

Stiles shook his head, stumbling over to the sink and looking at himself in the mirror, bracing the sides of the sink for some kind of stability. This was sort of like a panic attack, wasn't it?

He looked into the mirror, staring at himself and telling himself "This is a dream. It's a dream," he gasped in a breath. "It's just a dream-" the blurry image of Scott in the background coming in and out of focus.

"No, it's not," Scott answered him frantically. "This is real. You're here. You're here with me." Scott sounded like he desperately wanted, no, needed, Stiles to believe him, but Stiles was too busy breathing heavily, his head spinning, to pick up on the panic in his best friend's voice.

"O-okay, um," Scott started, trying to think of what to do. "What do you do?" he asked. "I mean, like, h-how do you tell if this is- if you're awake or you're dreaming?"

"Y-your fingers," he gasped, slightly out of breath. He could feel the sweat pouring down his face. "You count your fingers. You have extra fingers in dreams." He leaned over the sink, trying to catch his breath. He felt like he was going to hurl. Why wasn't Maeve waking him up? She's right behind him. Wake me up, Maeve!

"How many do I have?" He could barely hear Scott over his breathing and his racing thoughts. "Hey! Look at me! Come on, Stiles!"

Stiles looked up at him in the mirror and turned around to him.

"Look at my hands and count with me." He couldn't seem to focus on Scott, but tried his hardest to see his hands, to count his friend's fingers.

He had to get his breathing under control, he couldn't catch his breath. "One," he started, taking deep gulps of breath.

"Two," he continued, but he just couldn't breathe.

"Keep going," Scott yelled.

"Three," he was starting to get his breathing under control. He looked at Scott, noticing his worried face as he encouraged him to keep counting. Stiles looked back at his fingers.

"Four," he said.

"Five," Scott interjected as he showed him his thumb, the last finger on his first hand.

But Stiles continued as Scott kept putting up fingers, "six, seven."

"Eight," Scott encouraged.

"Nine," Stiles gasped, looking to the floor and trying to blink the sweat from his eyes. He looked back up and counted the last finger, "Ten."

He double checked both of Scott's hands. No extra fingers.

"Ten," Scott affirmed. "Ten."

Suddenly, Stiles could catch his breath. He looked at Scott's fingers in disbelief, falling back into the wall and sliding down to the floor, flailing his hands to try to catch his fall.

"What the hell is happening to me," he asked as Scott crouched in front of him.

"We'll figure it out," Scott said quietly. "You're going to be okay-"

"Am I?" Stiles interrupted him. He looked at Scott like he couldn't believe him. "Are you?"

His best friend looked like he didn't know what to say.

"Scott, you can't transform. Allison's being haunted by her dead aunt." Stiles continued, "I'm straight up losing my mind." Scott looked at him helplessly. "We can't do this. We can't-" he shook his head, fighting back tears. "We can't help Malia... We can't help anyone."

Scott sighed, shifting to sit on the floor as he gathered his thoughts. He blinked a few times, "We can try." He nodded his head as he started to believe in the words he was saying. "We can always try."

Stiles wasn't sure who he was trying to convince the most in that moment.

She wasn't able to pay attention to the rest of the lesson. As soon as the bell rang, she quickly gathered her things, only to be stopped by Kira as Mr. Yukimura was making an announcement that neither of them were listening to.

"They both left their bags. We can take them and give them back, yeah?"

Maeve slowly released a calming breath, closing her eyes. "Yeah, that sounds fine, let's do that."

They walked to the nurse's office, and Maeve wasn't surprised that neither of them had actually gone.

"Well, if they aren't here, then where are they?" Kira asked, shouldering Scott's bag to keep it from falling.

Maeve gripped the straps to Stiles' backpack tightly. She closed her eyes, taking the time to try and feel Stiles' presence, trying to see if she could focus on his feelings outside of everyone else's. It wasn't something she'd ever done before, but it was something she'd wanted to try and now was the best time to give it a shot.

"Maeve, what are you doing?" Kira asked in a fake whisper.

"Just trust me, give me a minute." She heard Kira shuffle her feet, but noticed she stayed right beside her.

She filtered through the emotions that were closest to her, visualizing them in her mind. She flitted past Kira's confusion, then she sifted through the kids who walked by her, almost walking the corridor in her mind.

She could slightly feel his presence near the locker rooms, which were back in the same building as their history class. Maeve wasn't sure if it was a current presence, but she did sense something that resembled him there.

"I think Locker Rooms," Maeve finally opened her eyes, looking to Kira.

"Is this because you're a psychic, like your mom?" Kira asked with an awkward smile.

"I-I don't-" Maeve stuttered, unsure where that line of thought came from.

"I've noticed how sensitive you get around others, especially when we're walking between classes and it's crowded. You, like, physically shy away from everybody." She pointed out matter of fact.

"W-well that's b-beca- "

"It's okay, Maeve. I don't think it's weird. I have some weird stuff, too." Her friend gave her a comforting smile, or well, what Kira thought was comforting but Maeve couldn't help but smile at her affinity for awkwardness.

"Ah, do you sense people's emotions, too?"

Kira hesitated. "N-not exact- we're gonna have a heart to heart later, aren't we?" she sighed heavily in resignation.

"Oh, yeah, absolutely. I can talk about my problems; you talk about yours. It'll be a real bonding experience," Maeve chuckled.

"I'm somehow terrified," Kira's brows furrowed in thought.

"You probably should be," Maeve admitted, as they walked toward the building they just came from. "Now let's find these boys and then make them carry our bags for the rest of the day. I don't know what Stiles has in here, but it's freaking heavy."

She shook the bag a bit and could have sworn she heard chains rattling inside. She snorted with a shake of her head. I don't even want to know.

Maeve walked through the doors behind Kira, running into her back as she had stopped short in the middle of the hallway.

"Ow, why'd you stop?" she asked, looking over Kira's shoulder to see a coyote at the top of the stairs.

"M-Mae-"

"Shh-" she quickly shushed her friend. "Don't move," she whispered to Kira, taking a slow step in front of her.

The coyote snarled at them, a fierce look in its eyes.

"Oh my God," Kira breathed out in fear. At that, the coyote bounded down the steps toward them.

Kira dropped Scott's bag as Maeve pulled her toward the door to their left and slammed it shut behind them. Maeve dropped Stiles' bag as it was much too heavy to carry while fighting for her life.

She held the door closed and pushed Kira. "Go, go." Kira hesitated for a second, before pulling Maeve with her as they ran around the locker cubicles to the back of the room where the actual lockers were.

They stopped behind a row of them, Maeve holding her breath slightly to listen to the sounds from the other side of the door. Just then, the sound of shattered glass reverberated through the room.

Maeve could hear Kira panting for breath behind her as she also listened for the animal. She heard growling coming toward the corner she was standing at, the coyote snarling loudly as if it knew where they were hiding.

For some reason, Maeve was picking up emotions from the coyote.

When she had first discovered her ability, the first things she practiced on were animals, thinking it would be fun to be able to know how they were feeling and what they could be thinking. An animal whisperer could get her far in life, but no matter how hard she tried, she was never able to get anything from them. Nothing that wasn't obvious from looking at them, nothing as deep as what she was feeling from this coyote.

The animal was terrified yet also angry. That isn't so surprising, considering that is what animals normally feel in times of distress, but there was something else there that was bothering Maeve. There was an overwhelming sadness radiating from the creature.

She peeked around the corner and locked eyes with it. They flashed the brightest blue she had ever seen in her life, and she could see the beginnings of a hazy image. That doesn't make sense. Animals don't have that deep of an emotional connection to memories, especially wild animals, and their eyes don't flash a different color either.

Maeve shook her head as the image became clearer.

There was a car, she was in the backseat of it, and there was a full moon in the sky.

That was all she could see before she was too scared to look further. She moved back behind the lockers so fast that she was surprised she didn't have whiplash.

Maeve slowly began pushing Kira backwards as they backed away from that corner of the locker.

Suddenly there was a hand on Maeve's shoulder, and she whipped around quickly, her fist making an impact with a chest. She blinked as she saw Scott, but it seemed like the punch didn't faze him as he quickly pulled her behind him, sending his hand out to push the lockers over.

Maeve knew Scott had muscles, but she didn't think he'd be capable of knocking those lockers over so easily. Shouldn't they have been bolted to the floor? With all of those boys rough housing in this locker room, had they been knocked over several times? That just doesn't seem plausible. Unless Scott was just that strong. A line of thought she'd delve further into later when her life wasn't on the line.

Maeve shook her thoughts from her head as Scott and Kira went to see if the coyote had been caught underneath the wreckage, despite the ominous growls it was sounding out. But then it got quiet.

She quickly followed them, peeking around Scott to see nothing. The coyote had disappeared.

Authors note

Hi guys! I'm so sorry for the unplanned hiatus I went on. I had gotten busy with work, and then I was doing things to prep for a surgery. I had a breast reduction and was having to do a lot of documentation for insurance purposes, so that took a lot out of me, and then I was working overtime to try and pay for what insurance wouldn't cover.

I truly thought that I'd be able to write during my recovery, but even moving my arms hurt so much, so then I just focused on getting better so I could get back to work.