The Mouth of a Wolf's Not the End of the World (gift for tw_holidays)
Title: The Mouth of a Wolf's Not the End of the World
Author: mosca
Recipient: tw_holidays
Pairings & Characters: Allison Argent/Lydia Martin, Derek Hale, Gerard Argent, Kate Argent
Rating: R for violence and sexual situations
Word Count: 4411
Warnings: Secondary character death.
Summary: Allison has always been a werewolf hunter. Derek was ten when he survived the fire that killed his family. When the Argents return to Beacon Hills to kill Derek, Allison meets Lydia, and their romance makes her want to break the cycle.
Author's Notes: Thanks to [to be revealed] for the fast beta. The title is from the song "First Midnight," from the musical Into the Woods by Stephen Sondheim.
*
1.
By her seventeenth birthday, Allison had killed twenty-two werewolves, three werecougars, a werebear with two cubs, and a selkie. She'd almost bagged a Western green dragon at the Montana-Saskatchewan border, but it had breathed a choking plume of smoke that had ruined her aim. Other people measured their childhoods in report cards and soccer trophies, but Allison recorded hers in scalps and teeth.
Grandpa told her she'd been to Beacon Hills before, but she didn't remember. "We burned out a house full of them. A family. While they slept. They didn't know what hit them." Grandpa reminisced as if he could still taste the blood on his tongue.
"If they're all gone, then why are we going back?" Allison asked. Her mouth was full of Doritos. When they hit the road, Grandpa bought her off with junk food like she was still a four-year-old sobbing for her mother.
"They're not all gone," Aunt Kate said. "There was a boy. Ten years old. I... wasn't able to finish the job with him."
"What your aunt means is, she felt guilty, and she failed," Grandpa said. "She saw a child and forgot the wolf within him. And now that child has grown up, and we have to clean up your aunt's mess." He leaned around the front passenger seat to look Allison in the eyes. "But you won't be like her, will you, Allison? When you take out a pack you will salt. The. Earth."
Allison nodded, afraid she couldn't keep the promise.
2.
They arrived in Beacon Hills on the last night of the full moon. Allison picked up the wolf's trail in the woods that ringed thick, ragged growth around a Northern California logging town that had moved on to other industries. The wolf should have been an easy kill, but he eluded her. Allison tugged arrows out of trees and cursed him.
Distracted by failure, Allison tripped over a large object in her path. She assumed it was a log, but as she got up, she discovered that the obstacle was human. She crouched over the body. It was a girl her own age, her strawberry-blonde curls of hair matted with leaves, lipstick somehow flawless. The girl was breathing, and Allison found a pulse but couldn't wake her.
At least her death would be painless. Allison stood over the girl and drew her bow.
She couldn't release it. This girl was Allison in another life: a normal life where she went to school and dressed up for dances, where her greatest fears were eating lunch alone and taking final exams. Killing this girl would have felt like suicide.
Allison slung the girl over her shoulder. She was just strong enough to bear the girl's weight. Allison couldn't go back to the motel with her, though, so she wandered through the woods, back aching, praying with mounting fervor that she would happen upon a place to deposit an unconscious girl who might have been turning into a werewolf.
Exhausted, Allison caught her toe on a tree root and spilled forward, landing in a pile of leaves with two skinned knees and the still-unconscious girl on top of her. She'd knocked the wind out of herself, and it took a moment to regain her breath and clear her head. When she looked up, a man loomed over her, the moon illuminating him from behind, turning him into an eerie silhouette.
She could smell wolf on him. She rolled out from under the other girl and reached for her bow.
"So that's where she went," the wolf said. "Hand her over."
Allison found just enough adrenaline to jump to her feet and shoot a silver-tipped wolfsbane arrow point-blank into the werewolf's heart. When he fell, she slit his throat with her pocketknife, also wolfsbane treated so he wouldn't clot. His body distorted into the form of a wolf. He, and not the boy from Grandpa's story, had been the Alpha.
Up ahead, Allison saw the burned-out ruins of a house. She tried to pick the girl back up, but she was out of strength. Surely the house was abandoned, but she was curious: it had to be the one her family had set fire to thirteen years ago. As she approached the house, she noticed a car parked in front of it, clean and well cared for. A man lay in the back seat. Allison cradled her bow under her arm as she knocked on the window.
The man sat up and stared at her like he could will her away. When she stood firm, he rolled down the window. The scent of wolf filled her nose. But his round face and narrow eyes had a gentleness about them, a weary sadness that made him seem mostly human.
"Hi," she began.
He reached for the window crank.
"There's a girl," Allison said. "In the woods. She got bitten, and I can't wake her, but she's alive. I can't carry her any farther. So if you - if you're who I think you are -"
"You're who I think you are," the wolf said. "Aren't you?"
"I don't want to hurt her. Or you. I already... I took out the Alpha. So I can, but I won't. Just - I've never seen someone get bitten and react like this."
"So that covers her," the wolf said. "What about me?"
"I don't think my aunt wants you dead," Allison said. "At least not yet."
The wolf nodded. "I'll take care of the girl."
Allison turned to go but realized she didn't know where she was headed. "I'm good at tracking animals," she said, "but not so good at motels."
He pointed out the car window. "Route 9 is that way. If you're staying in town, your motel's along there. It'll be a couple of miles."
"Thanks." She looked up at the bright reassurance of the North Star. But she wasn't the only one who could navigate. "I think I just gave you one up on us."
"Maybe, maybe not," the wolf said.
3.
The girl showed up at the front desk of Allison's motel two days later, brimming with enough healthy energy to yell at the clerk. It was hard to imagine that she'd been close to death such a short time earlier, and Allison would have expected her to take months to recover from her injuries. Allison had kept peace with her family by not mentioning the girl's existence, nor her encounter with the young werewolf at the burned-out house. Grandpa was proud that Allison had bagged the Alpha and hadn't dug deeper. He knew she was hiding information, though - he had discomfiting ways of showing that. He sat closer than usual, talked more softly, made unsubtle mention of her parents. "Don't you want to avenge them?" he seemed to constantly whisper.
Allison tried not to stare at the girl, but she was making a scene. "You don't understand," she was yelling. "This person saved my life." The clerk mumbled inaudibly. "Well," the girl said. "Here's my name and number. Pass it along if you decide to bother doing your job."
The girl wheeled around, and her look of shock when she saw Allison made Allison think she'd be lugging her around unconscious again. Instead, the girl said, "I like your jacket."
Aunt Kate had bought it for Allison at a thrift shop in eastern Washington for Allison's sixteenth birthday. They'd celebrated over a campfire with Hostess cupcakes. Allison fumbled for a "Thank you."
"I also liked how you rescued me from a werewolf in the woods," the girl said, shamelessly loud. "Don't worry. I know what's going on. Derek spent two days telling me what to expect when you're turning into a magical wolf-human hybrid. I don't think it took, though."
Allison sniffed the air. The girl didn't have the putrefying odor of a dying bite victim, but she didn't have the wet puppy scent of a new wolf, either. She was human. Somehow. "What are you?" Allison asked.
"I'm going to go ahead and assume you meant 'who.' I'm Lydia."
Allison introduced herself hesitantly. Lydia looked normal as far as she could tell. Now that she'd washed the leaves out of her hair, the girl's hair fell in thick, expensively styled curls around wide eyes and full lips painted stop-sign red. She wasn't normal: she was beautiful. Allison couldn't look at her anymore.
"So are you starting at the high school next week?" Lydia sounded hopeful.
"I don't think we'll be here that long," Allison said. "And I don't really go to school. We have kind of a family business."
The few times that Allison had told other kids this, they'd been jealous, but Lydia glared at her disapprovingly.
"We can hang out, though," Allison said. "While I'm in town."
Lydia pulled a cellphone out of her purse.
"Oh," Allison said, "I'm not allowed to have a phone. And even if I did - my grandfather, if he knew you were alive - and the new Alpha, too. You shouldn't come around here, either."
Lydia looked over both shoulders, pursing her lips. She didn't seem to understand the danger - how could she possibly? "There's a 24-hour Mexican diner down the road. Nobody under sixty ever goes there except me. I go there to read sometimes. When I need to hide from my boyfriend."
Allison bristled at the existence of Lydia's boyfriend. Winning Lydia's friendship felt like an undercover hunting mission. "I'll try to be around," Allison said. She wasn't sure yet how she was going to get away from Grandpa, but like Lydia, she knew how to disappear.
4.
Allison went to the woods knowing she wouldn't find werewolves there. The moon had begun to wane, and their wolf instincts would burrow dormant in their human selves. Besides, there was only one werewolf left, unless he'd hurried up and turned a pack for himself already. She'd only met Derek once, but he'd seemed too solitary for that.
She went to him searching for history. The story Grandpa had told her was full of holes and revisions, the kind of story people tell when they know they're villains but need to feel like heroes. She found the house and Derek's car, but he was out somewhere, untrackable. She walked back, the woods echoing loneliness. As she reached the main road, she remembered Lydia and the Mexican diner. It was late afternoon, and Lydia might be there.
The diner was empty except for two old men at the bar watching TV and a waitress in the corner highlighting lines in a nursing textbook. Allison ordered coffee and a burrito and watched Colombian soap operas along with the old men.
Service was slow. Allison had finished two cups of coffee but seen no sign of her burrito when Lydia came in. Normal people looked inept when they were searching for someone: they tensed up their muscles and turned their heads from side to side. Lydia seemed to burst into bloom when she spotted Allison. "I hoped you'd be here."
She took something out of her purse and thrust it at Allison. A tube of lip gloss that looked expensive. "I thought it'd be a good color for you."
Allison raised her hands like she was being held up at cosmetics-point. "I can't."
"But you should."
Allison took the gift, knowing she couldn't avoid accepting it. "I'll try it on after I eat. I don't want to waste it."
"I'll buy you more," Lydia said, like she assumed she'd be in Allison's life long enough to supply perpetual lip gloss.
Allison sighed, beaten again, and coated her lips. She faked a smile to show off the color.
Lydia leaned across the table and kissed her. Allison jerked back, almost knocking over her coffee cup.
"Sorry," Lydia said like a girl who had never once apologized sincerely. "I thought that was where we were headed."
Allison got silent, sucking her glossy lips. The jump back had been a reflex reaction. She hadn't expected her first kiss to be this sudden, but she wanted to savor it for a moment anyway.
"I guess it's different with girls, though," Lydia said.
"More like, it's different with sheltered werewolf hunters who've never been kissed," Allison said.
Her burrito arrived along with a meal that Lydia hadn't ordered but the waitress seemed confident she wanted. "I was wondering why you didn't bring your dates around here," the waitress said. "You might want to take it outside after you eat, though. Those guys at the bar are old-fashioned."
They ate. Waiting was almost physically painful. "Tell me about high school," Allison said.
"What about it?" Lydia said with her mouth full.
"Everything."
Lydia talked about who sat at which cafeteria table and how she hated all of them, and Allison daydreamed to the sound of her voice, wishing she could know anyone long enough to hate them.
They lingered at the table after they'd paid the check. Allison was waiting for Lydia to take the lead, but Lydia seemed less bold now. "Come on," Allison said. "Let's go outside."
They walked around to the back of the diner to an empty section of parking lot. The noise of an exhaust fan was oddly romantic, drowning out the rest of the world. Allison refreshed her lip gloss.
This was her real first kiss. Lydia knew the right moves to start, pulling Allison close in her arms and parting Allison's lips with her tongue, but she seemed to freeze after that, like she thought her work was done. Allison improvised, swirling her tongue inside Lydia's mouth. Lydia pulled away with an exasperated smack of her lips. She grabbed the back of Allison's head with both hands and sucked her mouth wide open, wet and forceful. Allison felt it in the tips of her nipples and the pit of her stomach. She got the hang of kissing back, of pressing all her energy into Lydia's lips.
She could have had more than a kiss. Lydia wasn't the type to hold back. But when Lydia put her hands on Allison's breasts, Allison said, "Kissing's enough for now," as if they'd have time for everything else later.
5.
Lydia offered to drive Allison back to the motel, but Allison reminded her that it was best to remain a secret from Grandpa and Kate. The wind picked up during her walk, whipping her hair into her eyes and chilling her fingertips. It was amazing how fast her body could go from warm all over to frozen at the edges.
Back at the motel, Aunt Kate was sitting on the bed, repairing arrows. A pot of foul-smelling poison bubbled on the hot plate. "Where have you been?" Kate asked without looking up.
"Visiting a friend."
"You don't have friends," Kate said. "And if you do, you should stop."
"Sorry. Won't happen again." The lie fell smoothly, not only because Allison was used to ferrying half-truths between Kate and Grandpa, but also because it was very possible she wouldn't ever see Lydia again.
"There's a problem with killing an alpha and not his beta." Kate changed the subject seamlessly. "Now, there's a new Alpha, and he's younger and stronger than the other one."
"And smarter," Allison said, although from what she'd seen, that might have been overstating the case. Convincing her aunt that Derek was devious would help her protect him. Allison hadn't decided how long to keep him alive, but killing him before she got some answers about her past seemed like a wasted opportunity.
"Get your gear ready. We're going out again tonight."
Allison sat in a corner of the motel room instead, pretending to read Frankenstein. Grandpa would quiz her on it during their next road trip, as he did with every book she read. She'd been avoiding this one since she was twelve: it hit too close to home.
A few hours later, in the woods, Grandpa and Kate let her go off on her own to track Derek. They sent her away alone so cavalierly, she was certain they knew she was up to no good. They probably planned to trap her, to get to Derek just ahead of her and shoot him dead while she watched. They'd believe they were teaching her a lesson. So she did all she could do: she stalled them. She found a comfortable tree and climbed into its branches to read Frankenstein by flashlight.
Grandpa maintained the stalemate for half an hour before he shouted exasperatedly from the base of the tree, "Come down from there this instant, Allison." He would have sounded unnervingly calm to anyone else, but Allison could tell when he was angry.
She pretended to be invisible, pretended that the beam of her flashlight was the moon.
"I know you know where the young Alpha is, Allison," Grandpa called up. "You know where he's hiding, and you're going to lead me to him."
"Find him yourself," Allison said.
"You won't be welcome back to our room unless you bring him with you," Grandpa said. "And I doubt you'll last long out here by yourself."
Allison fished her room key out of her pocket and dropped it, letting it disappear into the brush. She read for at least an hour, until her back was sore where the branches dug into her skin and her eyes ached from squinting at her book in the dim light. She jumped out of the tree and paused to listen. Grandpa really had abandoned her here. She considered heading to the diner, but she wanted to see if Derek was safe.
If he was alive, she had one plan in mind; if they'd killed him, she had another.
6.
She found Derek asleep in his car, peaceful like he knew he was doomed anyway and might as well enjoy his nap. She kicked the door until he woke up. "Bite me," she shouted through the closed window.
"Fuck off," he mouthed back.
She pounded on the window with her fists until he opened the car door, sending her stumbling backward.
"You're not making it obvious enough that this is a trap," Derek said. "Next time, try neon."
"It's not. My family doesn't know I'm here. They know I've found you, but I won't tell them where you are. If that weren't true, you'd already be dead."
Derek sat sideways in the driver's seat, feet in the dirt. "If I turn you, they'll just kill you too."
"I'm betting they can't bring themselves to," Allison said.
"That's a bad bet."
"I know," she said, "but it's the only one I have left."
Derek folded his arms over his bare chest. He looked like a character out of Greek mythology, someone who endured the trials of angry gods and slayed monsters. He looked like a hero, not like an abomination. "I need a pack," he said. "You'd be a good start."
"So you'll do it?"
"Hold still," Derek said. "This'll hurt."
On the pain scale, it fell somewhere between a skinned knee and a hot plate burn. Allison barely flinched. Then, a terrible fatigue overtook her, and she collapsed to her knees. She couldn't feel a change. Maybe she'd die from the bite, and maybe that was what she deserved.
Derek guided her into the back seat to lie down. She tried to stay awake, but the bite pulled her under. As she drifted off, she heard Derek start the car.
She woke up in the motel parking lot, still in the back seat. "They're tracking me through the woods," said Derek, who'd put a shirt and shoes on while she'd been passed out. "Their own home base is the last place they'll look."
"I lost my key," Allison said. "Also, I'm not totally sure my legs work."
"The front desk should have a replacement. I grew up in a lot of hotels. My uncle and I moved around a lot to stay safe." His eyes, reflected in the rearview mirror, turned mournful. "He was kind of a psychopath, but he took good care of me."
"I'm sorry."
"That I lost him? Or that you killed him?" Derek didn't sound angry, only curious. He understood necessity.
"Everything," Allison said.
They went to the motel front desk together. Getting a key was no problem: the clerk remembered her. Allison handed the key to Derek and readied her bow. "Just in case."
"Really?"
"They're family. I'll aim for the knees."
The room was empty. Allison packed her things. When she was done, she and Derek sat tensely on the bed for a few minutes. "How long before they give up?" Derek asked.
"Maybe an hour. We should probably get on the road."
"We're not going anywhere," Derek said.
"They'll kill you if they find us here."
"I doubt it," he said. "You have good aim and the element of surprise."
"I can't. I can't shoot them, they're -"
"How many people have they killed?" Derek said. "Dozens? Hundreds? Because I've never killed anyone. I took down a baby deer when I was nine, and I cried. I'm not a big fan of death. Not like your people are."
"They raised me," Allison said slowly. "They love me."
"Not anymore," he said. "Not when they find out what you did. Isn't that what you wanted?"
Before she could decide if he was right, the door opened. Allison fired. Aunt Kate fell.
"Kneecaps," Allison told Derek. "Sedative." They dragged Aunt Kate into the room. Without asking if it was proper strategy, Derek tore Kate's shoulder with his teeth.
Feigning calm, Allison grabbed her bag, and they headed to Derek's car. "Let's get a burrito and wait for hell to break loose," she said.
7.
The diner had changed slightly since Allison had left it earlier that day. The TV was showing a soccer game instead of soap operas, and the crowd of old men at the bar had increased to five. A different bored waitress sat in an empty booth playing with her phone. Allison and Derek needed the shelter and security of a public place more than they needed dinner, but as she watched the waitress ignore her, Allison realized she was ravenous. She wanted to stalk something, kill it, and eat it raw. She shook off the lupine instinct and smiled.
"You can already control it, can't you?" Derek said.
"I don't think it's kicked in all the way, but I'm all right for now."
"The moon's waning," Derek said. "It won't be so bad tonight."
When the waitress finally bothered with them, Derek whispered something to her. The food came fast, and Allison received twice as much as she'd ordered. "Your body's rebuilding itself," Derek said.
"And it'll buy us time," she added.
She was starting on her second hamburger when Grandpa showed up. He shoved the glass door open so hard it rebounded and strode up to Allison, silent as death. "I just put down your aunt," he whispered. "Now come with me so I can show you the same mercy."
Allison stood up on the cracked booth seat and announced, "This man just killed my aunt. Call 911."
Derek tackled Grandpa and pinned him so fast Allison didn't see it happen. Wolf reflexes seemed like something to look forward to. The police came quickly, because it was the kind of town where they didn't have much to do. Allison's tears fell naturally as she gave her statement to the sheriff. The story Allison told was technically true. Kate had been asleep in the hotel room when they'd left.
Allison chose to believe that Kate had died still loving her, still thinking of her as human. It made mourning more painful, but she wanted that pain.
8.
"We have nowhere to go," Derek said as he started the car.
"Do you know where Lydia lives?" She seemed like the kind of girl who could sneak two werewolves past her parents.
Lydia's house was enormous. Allison walked around back and tossed rocks at the one window with a light on. Lydia, wearing a pink silk robe over flip-flops and nothing else, slid the glass door open. "What are you doing here?" She sounded surprised, not accusatory.
"We need a place to stay," Allison said.
"You and who?"
"Me and Derek."
Lydia relaxed visibly. "I'll make up a room. For him."
Allison went back to the car and returned with Derek. Lydia led them upstairs. "My parents exist in another wing," she explained. "Two other wings."
They dropped Derek off in a spare bedroom. Lydia closed the door to her own room and untied her robe. It slid off her shoulders, and Allison's heart pounded. She could feel the wolf rising in the pit of her stomach, prickling at her fingertips and sharpening her teeth.
"My aunt died tonight," Allison said.
Lydia put on pajamas. She held Allison in her arms until they fell asleep.
9.
In the morning, Allison and Derek discussed leaving Beacon Hills, but with Lydia in the room, there was no possibility of following through. "I guess it's as safe as anywhere," Allison said. Lydia beamed and kissed her like she'd been given a new puppy.
Before they finished breakfast, a social worker from the Department of Family Services showed up, pleased to have located Allison. She seemed inclined to let Allison fall through the cracks of the system, although she threatened to sign her up for grief counseling and a GED program. "By the time the paperwork goes through, you'll be eighteen anyway," the social worker said. "Mostly, I want you to make sure you have access to your money. Your grandfather was surprisingly forthcoming about the account information."
"He thinks he'll have it back in a few months," Allison said.
The social worker didn't flinch, just called the bank on Allison's behalf. It was a lot of money: centuries of rewards for murdered werewolves, plus interest. Allison looked forward to spending the Argent blood money on groceries and rent.
Her wolf senses rose as she stood in Lydia's doorway, her nose full of the rich acidity of coffee and the remains of bacon grease. The comforting smells eased Allison's aggressive instincts. Maybe Grandpa wouldn't find some technicality to break him out of jail, and she could live in this kind of quiet forever. She'd get a job and take Lydia to the prom. She'd be, finally, human.
Author: mosca
Recipient: tw_holidays
Pairings & Characters: Allison Argent/Lydia Martin, Derek Hale, Gerard Argent, Kate Argent
Rating: R for violence and sexual situations
Word Count: 4411
Warnings: Secondary character death.
Summary: Allison has always been a werewolf hunter. Derek was ten when he survived the fire that killed his family. When the Argents return to Beacon Hills to kill Derek, Allison meets Lydia, and their romance makes her want to break the cycle.
Author's Notes: Thanks to [to be revealed] for the fast beta. The title is from the song "First Midnight," from the musical Into the Woods by Stephen Sondheim.
*
1.
By her seventeenth birthday, Allison had killed twenty-two werewolves, three werecougars, a werebear with two cubs, and a selkie. She'd almost bagged a Western green dragon at the Montana-Saskatchewan border, but it had breathed a choking plume of smoke that had ruined her aim. Other people measured their childhoods in report cards and soccer trophies, but Allison recorded hers in scalps and teeth.
Grandpa told her she'd been to Beacon Hills before, but she didn't remember. "We burned out a house full of them. A family. While they slept. They didn't know what hit them." Grandpa reminisced as if he could still taste the blood on his tongue.
"If they're all gone, then why are we going back?" Allison asked. Her mouth was full of Doritos. When they hit the road, Grandpa bought her off with junk food like she was still a four-year-old sobbing for her mother.
"They're not all gone," Aunt Kate said. "There was a boy. Ten years old. I... wasn't able to finish the job with him."
"What your aunt means is, she felt guilty, and she failed," Grandpa said. "She saw a child and forgot the wolf within him. And now that child has grown up, and we have to clean up your aunt's mess." He leaned around the front passenger seat to look Allison in the eyes. "But you won't be like her, will you, Allison? When you take out a pack you will salt. The. Earth."
Allison nodded, afraid she couldn't keep the promise.
2.
They arrived in Beacon Hills on the last night of the full moon. Allison picked up the wolf's trail in the woods that ringed thick, ragged growth around a Northern California logging town that had moved on to other industries. The wolf should have been an easy kill, but he eluded her. Allison tugged arrows out of trees and cursed him.
Distracted by failure, Allison tripped over a large object in her path. She assumed it was a log, but as she got up, she discovered that the obstacle was human. She crouched over the body. It was a girl her own age, her strawberry-blonde curls of hair matted with leaves, lipstick somehow flawless. The girl was breathing, and Allison found a pulse but couldn't wake her.
At least her death would be painless. Allison stood over the girl and drew her bow.
She couldn't release it. This girl was Allison in another life: a normal life where she went to school and dressed up for dances, where her greatest fears were eating lunch alone and taking final exams. Killing this girl would have felt like suicide.
Allison slung the girl over her shoulder. She was just strong enough to bear the girl's weight. Allison couldn't go back to the motel with her, though, so she wandered through the woods, back aching, praying with mounting fervor that she would happen upon a place to deposit an unconscious girl who might have been turning into a werewolf.
Exhausted, Allison caught her toe on a tree root and spilled forward, landing in a pile of leaves with two skinned knees and the still-unconscious girl on top of her. She'd knocked the wind out of herself, and it took a moment to regain her breath and clear her head. When she looked up, a man loomed over her, the moon illuminating him from behind, turning him into an eerie silhouette.
She could smell wolf on him. She rolled out from under the other girl and reached for her bow.
"So that's where she went," the wolf said. "Hand her over."
Allison found just enough adrenaline to jump to her feet and shoot a silver-tipped wolfsbane arrow point-blank into the werewolf's heart. When he fell, she slit his throat with her pocketknife, also wolfsbane treated so he wouldn't clot. His body distorted into the form of a wolf. He, and not the boy from Grandpa's story, had been the Alpha.
Up ahead, Allison saw the burned-out ruins of a house. She tried to pick the girl back up, but she was out of strength. Surely the house was abandoned, but she was curious: it had to be the one her family had set fire to thirteen years ago. As she approached the house, she noticed a car parked in front of it, clean and well cared for. A man lay in the back seat. Allison cradled her bow under her arm as she knocked on the window.
The man sat up and stared at her like he could will her away. When she stood firm, he rolled down the window. The scent of wolf filled her nose. But his round face and narrow eyes had a gentleness about them, a weary sadness that made him seem mostly human.
"Hi," she began.
He reached for the window crank.
"There's a girl," Allison said. "In the woods. She got bitten, and I can't wake her, but she's alive. I can't carry her any farther. So if you - if you're who I think you are -"
"You're who I think you are," the wolf said. "Aren't you?"
"I don't want to hurt her. Or you. I already... I took out the Alpha. So I can, but I won't. Just - I've never seen someone get bitten and react like this."
"So that covers her," the wolf said. "What about me?"
"I don't think my aunt wants you dead," Allison said. "At least not yet."
The wolf nodded. "I'll take care of the girl."
Allison turned to go but realized she didn't know where she was headed. "I'm good at tracking animals," she said, "but not so good at motels."
He pointed out the car window. "Route 9 is that way. If you're staying in town, your motel's along there. It'll be a couple of miles."
"Thanks." She looked up at the bright reassurance of the North Star. But she wasn't the only one who could navigate. "I think I just gave you one up on us."
"Maybe, maybe not," the wolf said.
3.
The girl showed up at the front desk of Allison's motel two days later, brimming with enough healthy energy to yell at the clerk. It was hard to imagine that she'd been close to death such a short time earlier, and Allison would have expected her to take months to recover from her injuries. Allison had kept peace with her family by not mentioning the girl's existence, nor her encounter with the young werewolf at the burned-out house. Grandpa was proud that Allison had bagged the Alpha and hadn't dug deeper. He knew she was hiding information, though - he had discomfiting ways of showing that. He sat closer than usual, talked more softly, made unsubtle mention of her parents. "Don't you want to avenge them?" he seemed to constantly whisper.
Allison tried not to stare at the girl, but she was making a scene. "You don't understand," she was yelling. "This person saved my life." The clerk mumbled inaudibly. "Well," the girl said. "Here's my name and number. Pass it along if you decide to bother doing your job."
The girl wheeled around, and her look of shock when she saw Allison made Allison think she'd be lugging her around unconscious again. Instead, the girl said, "I like your jacket."
Aunt Kate had bought it for Allison at a thrift shop in eastern Washington for Allison's sixteenth birthday. They'd celebrated over a campfire with Hostess cupcakes. Allison fumbled for a "Thank you."
"I also liked how you rescued me from a werewolf in the woods," the girl said, shamelessly loud. "Don't worry. I know what's going on. Derek spent two days telling me what to expect when you're turning into a magical wolf-human hybrid. I don't think it took, though."
Allison sniffed the air. The girl didn't have the putrefying odor of a dying bite victim, but she didn't have the wet puppy scent of a new wolf, either. She was human. Somehow. "What are you?" Allison asked.
"I'm going to go ahead and assume you meant 'who.' I'm Lydia."
Allison introduced herself hesitantly. Lydia looked normal as far as she could tell. Now that she'd washed the leaves out of her hair, the girl's hair fell in thick, expensively styled curls around wide eyes and full lips painted stop-sign red. She wasn't normal: she was beautiful. Allison couldn't look at her anymore.
"So are you starting at the high school next week?" Lydia sounded hopeful.
"I don't think we'll be here that long," Allison said. "And I don't really go to school. We have kind of a family business."
The few times that Allison had told other kids this, they'd been jealous, but Lydia glared at her disapprovingly.
"We can hang out, though," Allison said. "While I'm in town."
Lydia pulled a cellphone out of her purse.
"Oh," Allison said, "I'm not allowed to have a phone. And even if I did - my grandfather, if he knew you were alive - and the new Alpha, too. You shouldn't come around here, either."
Lydia looked over both shoulders, pursing her lips. She didn't seem to understand the danger - how could she possibly? "There's a 24-hour Mexican diner down the road. Nobody under sixty ever goes there except me. I go there to read sometimes. When I need to hide from my boyfriend."
Allison bristled at the existence of Lydia's boyfriend. Winning Lydia's friendship felt like an undercover hunting mission. "I'll try to be around," Allison said. She wasn't sure yet how she was going to get away from Grandpa, but like Lydia, she knew how to disappear.
4.
Allison went to the woods knowing she wouldn't find werewolves there. The moon had begun to wane, and their wolf instincts would burrow dormant in their human selves. Besides, there was only one werewolf left, unless he'd hurried up and turned a pack for himself already. She'd only met Derek once, but he'd seemed too solitary for that.
She went to him searching for history. The story Grandpa had told her was full of holes and revisions, the kind of story people tell when they know they're villains but need to feel like heroes. She found the house and Derek's car, but he was out somewhere, untrackable. She walked back, the woods echoing loneliness. As she reached the main road, she remembered Lydia and the Mexican diner. It was late afternoon, and Lydia might be there.
The diner was empty except for two old men at the bar watching TV and a waitress in the corner highlighting lines in a nursing textbook. Allison ordered coffee and a burrito and watched Colombian soap operas along with the old men.
Service was slow. Allison had finished two cups of coffee but seen no sign of her burrito when Lydia came in. Normal people looked inept when they were searching for someone: they tensed up their muscles and turned their heads from side to side. Lydia seemed to burst into bloom when she spotted Allison. "I hoped you'd be here."
She took something out of her purse and thrust it at Allison. A tube of lip gloss that looked expensive. "I thought it'd be a good color for you."
Allison raised her hands like she was being held up at cosmetics-point. "I can't."
"But you should."
Allison took the gift, knowing she couldn't avoid accepting it. "I'll try it on after I eat. I don't want to waste it."
"I'll buy you more," Lydia said, like she assumed she'd be in Allison's life long enough to supply perpetual lip gloss.
Allison sighed, beaten again, and coated her lips. She faked a smile to show off the color.
Lydia leaned across the table and kissed her. Allison jerked back, almost knocking over her coffee cup.
"Sorry," Lydia said like a girl who had never once apologized sincerely. "I thought that was where we were headed."
Allison got silent, sucking her glossy lips. The jump back had been a reflex reaction. She hadn't expected her first kiss to be this sudden, but she wanted to savor it for a moment anyway.
"I guess it's different with girls, though," Lydia said.
"More like, it's different with sheltered werewolf hunters who've never been kissed," Allison said.
Her burrito arrived along with a meal that Lydia hadn't ordered but the waitress seemed confident she wanted. "I was wondering why you didn't bring your dates around here," the waitress said. "You might want to take it outside after you eat, though. Those guys at the bar are old-fashioned."
They ate. Waiting was almost physically painful. "Tell me about high school," Allison said.
"What about it?" Lydia said with her mouth full.
"Everything."
Lydia talked about who sat at which cafeteria table and how she hated all of them, and Allison daydreamed to the sound of her voice, wishing she could know anyone long enough to hate them.
They lingered at the table after they'd paid the check. Allison was waiting for Lydia to take the lead, but Lydia seemed less bold now. "Come on," Allison said. "Let's go outside."
They walked around to the back of the diner to an empty section of parking lot. The noise of an exhaust fan was oddly romantic, drowning out the rest of the world. Allison refreshed her lip gloss.
This was her real first kiss. Lydia knew the right moves to start, pulling Allison close in her arms and parting Allison's lips with her tongue, but she seemed to freeze after that, like she thought her work was done. Allison improvised, swirling her tongue inside Lydia's mouth. Lydia pulled away with an exasperated smack of her lips. She grabbed the back of Allison's head with both hands and sucked her mouth wide open, wet and forceful. Allison felt it in the tips of her nipples and the pit of her stomach. She got the hang of kissing back, of pressing all her energy into Lydia's lips.
She could have had more than a kiss. Lydia wasn't the type to hold back. But when Lydia put her hands on Allison's breasts, Allison said, "Kissing's enough for now," as if they'd have time for everything else later.
5.
Lydia offered to drive Allison back to the motel, but Allison reminded her that it was best to remain a secret from Grandpa and Kate. The wind picked up during her walk, whipping her hair into her eyes and chilling her fingertips. It was amazing how fast her body could go from warm all over to frozen at the edges.
Back at the motel, Aunt Kate was sitting on the bed, repairing arrows. A pot of foul-smelling poison bubbled on the hot plate. "Where have you been?" Kate asked without looking up.
"Visiting a friend."
"You don't have friends," Kate said. "And if you do, you should stop."
"Sorry. Won't happen again." The lie fell smoothly, not only because Allison was used to ferrying half-truths between Kate and Grandpa, but also because it was very possible she wouldn't ever see Lydia again.
"There's a problem with killing an alpha and not his beta." Kate changed the subject seamlessly. "Now, there's a new Alpha, and he's younger and stronger than the other one."
"And smarter," Allison said, although from what she'd seen, that might have been overstating the case. Convincing her aunt that Derek was devious would help her protect him. Allison hadn't decided how long to keep him alive, but killing him before she got some answers about her past seemed like a wasted opportunity.
"Get your gear ready. We're going out again tonight."
Allison sat in a corner of the motel room instead, pretending to read Frankenstein. Grandpa would quiz her on it during their next road trip, as he did with every book she read. She'd been avoiding this one since she was twelve: it hit too close to home.
A few hours later, in the woods, Grandpa and Kate let her go off on her own to track Derek. They sent her away alone so cavalierly, she was certain they knew she was up to no good. They probably planned to trap her, to get to Derek just ahead of her and shoot him dead while she watched. They'd believe they were teaching her a lesson. So she did all she could do: she stalled them. She found a comfortable tree and climbed into its branches to read Frankenstein by flashlight.
Grandpa maintained the stalemate for half an hour before he shouted exasperatedly from the base of the tree, "Come down from there this instant, Allison." He would have sounded unnervingly calm to anyone else, but Allison could tell when he was angry.
She pretended to be invisible, pretended that the beam of her flashlight was the moon.
"I know you know where the young Alpha is, Allison," Grandpa called up. "You know where he's hiding, and you're going to lead me to him."
"Find him yourself," Allison said.
"You won't be welcome back to our room unless you bring him with you," Grandpa said. "And I doubt you'll last long out here by yourself."
Allison fished her room key out of her pocket and dropped it, letting it disappear into the brush. She read for at least an hour, until her back was sore where the branches dug into her skin and her eyes ached from squinting at her book in the dim light. She jumped out of the tree and paused to listen. Grandpa really had abandoned her here. She considered heading to the diner, but she wanted to see if Derek was safe.
If he was alive, she had one plan in mind; if they'd killed him, she had another.
6.
She found Derek asleep in his car, peaceful like he knew he was doomed anyway and might as well enjoy his nap. She kicked the door until he woke up. "Bite me," she shouted through the closed window.
"Fuck off," he mouthed back.
She pounded on the window with her fists until he opened the car door, sending her stumbling backward.
"You're not making it obvious enough that this is a trap," Derek said. "Next time, try neon."
"It's not. My family doesn't know I'm here. They know I've found you, but I won't tell them where you are. If that weren't true, you'd already be dead."
Derek sat sideways in the driver's seat, feet in the dirt. "If I turn you, they'll just kill you too."
"I'm betting they can't bring themselves to," Allison said.
"That's a bad bet."
"I know," she said, "but it's the only one I have left."
Derek folded his arms over his bare chest. He looked like a character out of Greek mythology, someone who endured the trials of angry gods and slayed monsters. He looked like a hero, not like an abomination. "I need a pack," he said. "You'd be a good start."
"So you'll do it?"
"Hold still," Derek said. "This'll hurt."
On the pain scale, it fell somewhere between a skinned knee and a hot plate burn. Allison barely flinched. Then, a terrible fatigue overtook her, and she collapsed to her knees. She couldn't feel a change. Maybe she'd die from the bite, and maybe that was what she deserved.
Derek guided her into the back seat to lie down. She tried to stay awake, but the bite pulled her under. As she drifted off, she heard Derek start the car.
She woke up in the motel parking lot, still in the back seat. "They're tracking me through the woods," said Derek, who'd put a shirt and shoes on while she'd been passed out. "Their own home base is the last place they'll look."
"I lost my key," Allison said. "Also, I'm not totally sure my legs work."
"The front desk should have a replacement. I grew up in a lot of hotels. My uncle and I moved around a lot to stay safe." His eyes, reflected in the rearview mirror, turned mournful. "He was kind of a psychopath, but he took good care of me."
"I'm sorry."
"That I lost him? Or that you killed him?" Derek didn't sound angry, only curious. He understood necessity.
"Everything," Allison said.
They went to the motel front desk together. Getting a key was no problem: the clerk remembered her. Allison handed the key to Derek and readied her bow. "Just in case."
"Really?"
"They're family. I'll aim for the knees."
The room was empty. Allison packed her things. When she was done, she and Derek sat tensely on the bed for a few minutes. "How long before they give up?" Derek asked.
"Maybe an hour. We should probably get on the road."
"We're not going anywhere," Derek said.
"They'll kill you if they find us here."
"I doubt it," he said. "You have good aim and the element of surprise."
"I can't. I can't shoot them, they're -"
"How many people have they killed?" Derek said. "Dozens? Hundreds? Because I've never killed anyone. I took down a baby deer when I was nine, and I cried. I'm not a big fan of death. Not like your people are."
"They raised me," Allison said slowly. "They love me."
"Not anymore," he said. "Not when they find out what you did. Isn't that what you wanted?"
Before she could decide if he was right, the door opened. Allison fired. Aunt Kate fell.
"Kneecaps," Allison told Derek. "Sedative." They dragged Aunt Kate into the room. Without asking if it was proper strategy, Derek tore Kate's shoulder with his teeth.
Feigning calm, Allison grabbed her bag, and they headed to Derek's car. "Let's get a burrito and wait for hell to break loose," she said.
7.
The diner had changed slightly since Allison had left it earlier that day. The TV was showing a soccer game instead of soap operas, and the crowd of old men at the bar had increased to five. A different bored waitress sat in an empty booth playing with her phone. Allison and Derek needed the shelter and security of a public place more than they needed dinner, but as she watched the waitress ignore her, Allison realized she was ravenous. She wanted to stalk something, kill it, and eat it raw. She shook off the lupine instinct and smiled.
"You can already control it, can't you?" Derek said.
"I don't think it's kicked in all the way, but I'm all right for now."
"The moon's waning," Derek said. "It won't be so bad tonight."
When the waitress finally bothered with them, Derek whispered something to her. The food came fast, and Allison received twice as much as she'd ordered. "Your body's rebuilding itself," Derek said.
"And it'll buy us time," she added.
She was starting on her second hamburger when Grandpa showed up. He shoved the glass door open so hard it rebounded and strode up to Allison, silent as death. "I just put down your aunt," he whispered. "Now come with me so I can show you the same mercy."
Allison stood up on the cracked booth seat and announced, "This man just killed my aunt. Call 911."
Derek tackled Grandpa and pinned him so fast Allison didn't see it happen. Wolf reflexes seemed like something to look forward to. The police came quickly, because it was the kind of town where they didn't have much to do. Allison's tears fell naturally as she gave her statement to the sheriff. The story Allison told was technically true. Kate had been asleep in the hotel room when they'd left.
Allison chose to believe that Kate had died still loving her, still thinking of her as human. It made mourning more painful, but she wanted that pain.
8.
"We have nowhere to go," Derek said as he started the car.
"Do you know where Lydia lives?" She seemed like the kind of girl who could sneak two werewolves past her parents.
Lydia's house was enormous. Allison walked around back and tossed rocks at the one window with a light on. Lydia, wearing a pink silk robe over flip-flops and nothing else, slid the glass door open. "What are you doing here?" She sounded surprised, not accusatory.
"We need a place to stay," Allison said.
"You and who?"
"Me and Derek."
Lydia relaxed visibly. "I'll make up a room. For him."
Allison went back to the car and returned with Derek. Lydia led them upstairs. "My parents exist in another wing," she explained. "Two other wings."
They dropped Derek off in a spare bedroom. Lydia closed the door to her own room and untied her robe. It slid off her shoulders, and Allison's heart pounded. She could feel the wolf rising in the pit of her stomach, prickling at her fingertips and sharpening her teeth.
"My aunt died tonight," Allison said.
Lydia put on pajamas. She held Allison in her arms until they fell asleep.
9.
In the morning, Allison and Derek discussed leaving Beacon Hills, but with Lydia in the room, there was no possibility of following through. "I guess it's as safe as anywhere," Allison said. Lydia beamed and kissed her like she'd been given a new puppy.
Before they finished breakfast, a social worker from the Department of Family Services showed up, pleased to have located Allison. She seemed inclined to let Allison fall through the cracks of the system, although she threatened to sign her up for grief counseling and a GED program. "By the time the paperwork goes through, you'll be eighteen anyway," the social worker said. "Mostly, I want you to make sure you have access to your money. Your grandfather was surprisingly forthcoming about the account information."
"He thinks he'll have it back in a few months," Allison said.
The social worker didn't flinch, just called the bank on Allison's behalf. It was a lot of money: centuries of rewards for murdered werewolves, plus interest. Allison looked forward to spending the Argent blood money on groceries and rent.
Her wolf senses rose as she stood in Lydia's doorway, her nose full of the rich acidity of coffee and the remains of bacon grease. The comforting smells eased Allison's aggressive instincts. Maybe Grandpa wouldn't find some technicality to break him out of jail, and she could live in this kind of quiet forever. She'd get a job and take Lydia to the prom. She'd be, finally, human.