Erica. The girl Marco had felt dying….fading— sensing that which lies beyond the norm only a day ago. She was moments away from death. It seemed she was moments away from something far more interesting as well. A fact he realized as soon as he stepped into the school and caught her scent.
She had been transformed.
And her smell. It hurt his soul. It sent him to a time— a place worlds from here. A place where the sun shined with a holy essence, and the sands and tall grass ran forever over valleys and cracked flatlands full of life. Life he once was apart of.
Her smell was a memory he wasn't fond of. It seemed Scott and Stiles weren't either. Especially Scott.
As they rushed past him, he could feel the young wolfs accusatory eyes fall on him briefly before they continued towards the girl that was more than she was a day ago.
He had no interest in the changes seen in a halfblood or her story of how she came to be. So, he pushed on. Eager to get away from the cafeteria full of students and smells he wished he couldn't catch.
He shrugged his guitar case further up on his shoulder and pushed through the doors Scott and Stiles exited. Their questions and shocked comments made towards Erica fading altogether to a dull hum as the doors closed behind him.
As soon as he entered the cafeteria it went deadly silent.
Hundreds of eyes scanned him warily as if they hadn't seen him every day for the past week. Their fear got a rise out of something within him that he had to forcibly push back down.
He pressed onward, wading through the room full of stares— returning a few along the way until he found his way to the door on the opposite end. As it closed behind him, he could hear them all sigh in relief before taking a shocked inhale as the exit door opened.
His ears flinched in response to a conversation he caught the tail end of.
"-rica wait!— you don't know him. None of us do. You should stay away from him."
"You may have found me on the floor helpless yesterday Scott, but you don't make my decisions for me. I just want to know his name." Erica's voice cut through the silence that had fallen on the cafeteria once more. Only this time there was little fear and much more….hormonal excitement.
Teenagers….
"What?- we can tell you his name!" Stiles complained as his sneakers squeaked against the tile floor while he chased after her.
"Yea, but what else can you tell me, dog boy?"
"Erica. He's not somebody you want to get involved with. And if he's the one that did this to you, it's all the more reason you should stay away and let us deal with him." Scott explained in a whisper as they headed closer to Marco.
"I already told you. He didn't do this to me— why do you think I want to know him."
Scott and Stiles made a pair of dumbfounded expressions. Marco didn't need superhuman senses to know so.
Erica continued, sounding as if she was right next to the door he stood on the other side of.
"I want to know if he was bitten by the Blue Eyed Beast too…"
Somehow it got even quieter….
And Marco felt the need to be even further from everyone inside the cafeteria.
His pace quickened in response, sending him further down the hallway and away from the mass of students.
The school suddenly felt like a labyrinth of sorts, with all its twists and high climbing stairs littered with couples eating face and being romantically mushy enough to make Marco cringe.
After a while, he felt far enough from the cafeteria to stop. Here, she could speak without getting herself into trouble she couldn't escape.
He came to a stop in the middle of the hallway. It suddenly felt endless. Like a separate dimension in its intense silence lined by classroom doors where no teachers or couples resided.
He raised his head, shaking his dreaded locks of hair out of his face to get a clearer scent of the air.
Cleaning products….coffee….leather…metals— and Shifter. Female. Feline.
His right hand began to shake. Vibrating with the power of something beyond his understanding.
The same feeling as before.
"You're not going as easily unnoticed as you think." He spoke into the seemingly empty hallway.
His oddly accented voice bounced off the hallway walls and hit his target.
As soundless as she'd been the entire time she followed him. All he could make out was the faint rubbing sound of her form fitting clothing that fell on his sensitive ears as she stepped out into the hallway to face him.
He turned. Letting his eyes view the newly made shifter.
Erica. A castaway. A sorry excuse of life— always on the verge of an episode of humiliation, agony and pain. A hardened fighter nonetheless. Not the strongest. But enduring.
He'd seen her before drifting down the hallways, head down and demeanor closed off to the world.
The bite often dug deep into its victims and pulled out what they were within. Not what the world had made them.
It seems what lied within Erica was the opposite of what she'd been molded into.
There was little fear in her currently. She was all wonder, burning curiosity— aggression and sex appeal. Expressive in all her features— even her movements.
Her hair no longer sat in a tangled dirty-blonde bun that cupped her acne riddled face. It now lay smooth. Slicked back out of her chocolate brown eyes and left to trail down to her shoulders and back. Sleek and fluid. As if a million brush strokes was what it took to achieve such a look.
Sleek and fluid. Much like the rest of her. As she warily approached him, her black heels didn't make a sound. Her newly powerful sleek legs stretched and shifted the fabric of her black jeans that hugged her hips— ever piece of fabric holding on for dear life.
Her hands stayed in the pockets of her leather jacket that was strategically zipped to make her breasts pop to a distracting degree. The same went for the thick black eyeliner haloing her brown eyes and standing out against her lightly tanned skin.
She looked unrecognizable.
"I didn't think you could hear me.." She commented.
"I didn't have to."
She turned her head in confusion.
"You smell."
"So do you." Erica said as her eyes turned into feline slits.
Marco remained unfazed. "Maybe."
Erica stayed silent for a moment. He could almost see the cogs turning in her brain as she thought of what to say next— or rather, how to say it.
Eventually she gave up and took another step toward him, "I heard your name is Marco. People don't like to say it though….trying to have other people tell me about you was like pulling teeth. Even with my newfound ability of persuasion."
Marco nodded.
"Ok. Marco, I just have two questions." Erica finally said.
"Go." Marco replied.
"Did the Beast bite you too?"
Marco adjusted the guitar case slung over his shoulder, "No. I was born into this— as most of us are."
Erica's eyes flashed as she leapt at the opportunity to ask her next question like a Lion on the hunt. "And what exactly are…..we?"
Marco turned and began walking, "Thats a bit of information you're not ready for."
He could feel Erica's face turn into a mask of anger in a flash. Suddenly her scent was all over him followed by the iron grip of her hand landing on his shoulder to try and turn him around.
He moved with her pulling force, causing his guitar case to fly off his shoulder and slam into a locker as he faced her, grabbing her arm and pulling her closer to him.
His growls silenced her immediately as he pulled a pencil out of his pocket with his freehand and threw it across the hallway.
The pencil moved at bullet speeds past Erica's face, cutting open her cheek in its pursuit to land into the lens of the camera more then forty feet behind them. The shattered pieces of the lense falling to the floor were the only sounds emanating from the hallway for a long stretch of seconds.
"Control yourself!" He whispered while shaking her hand to make her notice the thick black claws at the ends of her fingers.
"There are only three functioning members of our kind left including you and I. Don't ruin it for us in a high-school because you can't control yourself." Marco added.
Erica's eyes stayed focused elsewhere. On something beside him. She looked like she'd seen a ghost.
Reflexively he followed her vision to his guitar case that lay on the floor. Partially opened from the impact of it being tossed. The silver gleam of a bladed edge peeking out from within reflected the glow of the industrial lights above. Unnaturally sharp and smelling of blood.
"That's…thats.." Erica muttered.
Marco let go of her arm and retrieved his case in a rush.
After a few seconds he was heaving it over his shoulder and heading further down the hallway, leaving her with a single parting message. As if she wasn't already in over her head.
"You want answers? I suggest you listen for the Beasts call. It changed you for a reason. Or maybe it didn't. Either way, that's the only one that can help or hurt you. You'll get nothing from me. I have my own issues, so stay out of the way. And lock yourself up on Full Moons. We have a hunting problem here."
***
Marco had long since left Erica's company. His mind still clouded with the events of this morning as he moved with the crowd of students heading to their first period class.
So clouded in fact that he missed the person calling his name until he found them standing directly in front of him.
An old man. Hair as white as his was black. He was tall— not as tall as Marco but taller than most, with limbs as thin as tree branches. He looked sick. His skin like old leather. He looked very sick.
And he smelled horrible.
He smelled familiar.
And his last name had Marco on the verge of transforming.
It was the principle.
"Marco— good morning, you looked a bit lost there haha. I'm the schools principle, Gerard Argent, and I've been meaning to speak with you, how about you step into my office for a bit before class?"