Her face. It was horrific. There was no scarring— no mangled skin or glistening bruises beneath the midnight moon glow inside the forest. She was horrific because she was so beautiful. So young. So innocent. And even so, he could see the horror she'd endured perfectly in her dark eyes.
"I'm sorry…. I wasn't strong enough."
The young woman's face twisted into a look of horror as she watched him. And then the sounds of flesh tearing ripped through the scenic and empty forest.
She jumped— startled. Then—
"AHHHHHHHHH!!!!"
***
"Lydia!" Scott burst up from his pillow in a cold sweat.
Her screams echoed across Beacon Hills still. His stomach quaked at the sound. His nose twitched at the smell.
His eyes darted over to the darkest corner of the room. The place Derek often used to stand when he first met Scott.
"What are you doing here?" Scott started.
"What do you think?" Marco replied as he stepped out of the shadows. Being in the small room made him seem larger than ever.
Marco studied him. Scott studied himself as well.
He felt sick. His bones hurt and his senses had been going haywire all night. But the hunger….
"No." He told himself.
While doing so he continued to study. He felt taller. Only a few inches— maybe less. His legs never hung so far from his bed. Heavier too based on the way he sunk into its softness. And the hair on his forearms was thicker. Small changes but ones that shouldn't happen over night.
"Your transformation into True Alpha is complete." Marco commented while looking at him from different angles.
"What are you talking about?" Scott said.
Marco grabbed his left arm and yanked him out of his bed.
Scott snarled and smacked his hand away as he got to his feet "The hell is wrong with you?!"
His eyes glimmered blood red and sent a cold front washing through the room. It felt like winter.
Three knocks emanated from the other side of the door.
"Everything ok in there?" Mellisa called from the other side of the door.
Marco nodded at Scott.
"Yea… fine, Mom." Scott replied hesitantly before Marco grabbed his chin and turned his face to the mirror at his desk.
His eyes widened and he stumbled backward onto his bed.
"True Alphas are Shifters that can make themselves into Alphas if they will it to happen. They just need the right circumstances. Others need to kill an Alpha and steal their spark— add it to their own. Those like you start with enough spark…. It just has to be molded." Marco explained.
Scott's surprise faded and he slumped into his bed more, "Yea well this was all for nothing."
"Nothing is willed into existence for nothing. It can be misguided but for nothing? No." Marco said.
Scott clenched his fists, "I still don't see how what we did is good. I know that's what you're here to tell me— and you can kick my ass all across town. I won't see it that way. I won't."
Marco nodded, "This is why you are what you are— partially. But you're still a dumbass, Scott."
Scott clenched his jaw.
"I'm not here to tell you what happened was good. What happened to Jackson was not a good thing. What we did, is the right thing. What I did, is right. Two things can be true, the right move isn't guaranteed to feel good. My sisters used to tell me something when our hunts got bad— when we'd find dying de-horned Rhinos in the plains with nothing in this life left for them. When we had to kill them. To end a misery we could not comprehend."
Scott looked up at him.
"What is a good feeling, when the bad is real?" Marco fought hard for that memory and for a way to implement it. But if it didn't work that was Scott's fault.
"What? So I should ignore how it affects me? Remove my own morality?" Scott started.
Marco no longer liked Deaton's concept of patience. He could choke the results out of him, everyone was obedient at the gates of death. Anubis' presence was great for teaching the art of listening.
He calmed with an inhale. "No, Scott. What I'm saying is, ask yourself. You're an Alpha looking for answers from me. It's perverse. You embarrass a linage of prestige and true power. Ask yourself, what is a good feeling when the bad is real? What is leaving Jackson to live as a Monster when the Warlocks are so real? What is it?"
Scott had no answer. That or he didn't like where Marco was taking him.
"I'll tell you what it is, it's difficult. And you know what difficulty does in a war? It kills." Marco pulled the paper bag from behind himself and tossed it at Scott's feet.
"What is this?" Scott asked, the lowering suns rays peeked into Scott's room and danced on his tan skin.
"Lunch." Marco lied.
Scott knew it wasn't as well as he ripped open the bag.
Papers fell all over the floor alongside gory imagery that would probably make a detective faint.
Case files, documentation of injury, witness testimony, family pleas, everything.
"The Warlocks are known to sew chaos into their lands. It's why they take to Hunters. It's why they took to working with the Poachers in my home. The pain, the blood and sadness. It feeds their magic somehow. It's part of why the Murder here has skyrocketed."
"I thought that was all the Blue-Eyed Beast." Scott said.
"Nothings ever that simple. The Blue-Eyed Beast is much more complex. But in its directness it's easy to understand who it's targets were not. Like these people. All the same age, all born here in Beacon Hills. No Argents, no Warlock affiliation. Disconnected from this world. Look how they died, Scott. Look at them!" Marco pressed.
Scott looked away.
"Don't be weak, Alpha. Look." Marco picked up a photo of a woman missing her heart.
"Tell me why you risk this for one. Tell me why you think we're fortunate enough to have both outcomes?" Marco questioned.
"Why can't we try?" Scott matched his intensity.
"Do you think we can afford it?!" Marco snapped back. "Your obsession with innocence and no killing and still you'd risk so many falling. Explain it, Scott. Explain it to me now!"
Scott's frustrations reached their melting point. He ran his hands through his dark hair, as he did, he transformed without meaning to. Something more than usual. His muscles expanded, his skin darkened and grew thicker. Fur spread across his forearms and face in the form of a beard over his thickened jaw.
He stood closer to Marco, their heads mashed together at the ear. Both avoiding eye contact and the battle it would bring. But still angry as all hell in their transformed states.
"I don't know why…. Marco." Scott growled through his fanged teeth. He'd grown a new set of incisors.
"You're naive, Scott." Marco spat, "Tell me I'm wrong."
Scott didn't.
He had some more denigrating remarks in him, but the oddest memory entered his mind. Something he said to the cat he worked with at the Vet Clinic only hours ago.
"Respect me as I respect you."
Marco decided to say something else in those moments.
"You are naive, Scott. But there is something in you that made you a True Alpha. I don't like you….. I want to put my fist through your face every time you talk. But I also am reminded that you weren't born into this. I won't coddle you. I'll beat you, and I'll break you ten times over. But along the way. Maybe there's times where we can try to have it both ways. We can fight for it. But only when the opportunity shows itself. I'm not aiming to be a good man. I'm aiming to get even. But even I won't put innocent humans in the crossfire of our world just to let another live in corruption. Like Jackson." Marco explained.
Scott had never been so silent. The two shifted back to their human forms.
"This is not a deal. This is our terms." Marco said, "I already mauled you for getting in my way. The next step is murder and it would hurt our numbers to lose your potential."
In all Scott's newfound anger a smile formed if only for a second.
"We're not shaking hands, Scott." Marco spoke into the silence.
Scott nodded, "Right."
"We need to go get the others." He added. Then he opened the window.
"What?— where are we going?"
"We're going for a run." Marco said.
***
An hour passed by in a flash of going from house to house…. To underground train station, until the entire group of allied Shifters was altogether.
"What the hell are they doing here?" Stiles questioned while pointing at Boyd and Erica as they all stood in Beacon Hills forest.
"I see a group of handsome young men, I follow." Erica replied and winked at Marco.
"She made me come with." Boyd said with a shrug.
Marco dropped down from a tree in the distance landed beside Scott as he came to a stop in the dead leaves.
"Scott suggested that we try letting this one live…. Even if I want to skin her." Marco growled.
"Ouuu you promise?"
Stiles turned around to face them, "You….. working with Scott? Ohhhh what the hell is going on?"
"Hopefully better odds." Derek said as he crossed his arms.
"Why did you bring us here?" Isaac asked Marco as he joined the circle of Shifters.
"The Druid gave me an idea. It won't apply to all of you, but it won't hurt to have you here." Marco explained.
"I thought we were going on a run?" Stiles said.
"That's how it starts." Marco replied before shrugging off his hoodie, "Keep up."
He blasted from his previous position in a burst of dead leaves and dirt.
The others followed with little hesitation. They had energy pent up anyway.
And then for the next twenty miles, they ran. Not only did they run, they leapt and bound across the wilderness. They were free, existing as they were— testing their limits under the eye of the darkening sky.
Sometimes Marco was at the front. He didn't run like the others. Grey Lions weren't made for it. He shook the earth with each jump, he dug his feline claws into the trees and swung himself through the sky for miles.
Other times Stiles led the charge. His speed was natural. Electric. He bobbed and weaved through the trees as a blur.
When he wasn't up, Scott battled Derek for the lead. The two Wolven Alphas weren't even aware of their competition.
Everyone was running. Many of them running away from something. A concept. A reality. An experience. A circumstance. Either way, it was a solitary journey. And that's what joined them in those moments.
The forest was miles behind them when they came to a stop finally. All that lay ahead was desert. Flatland under a evening sky. Birds flew overhead as they watched, smelled.
Marco let them all walk ahead of him and track the scent.
Eventually they all stopped around a general area.
Scott spoke first.
"This is where Jackson was buried."
"Why did you bring us here?" Stiles questioned. His face held the seriousness once more. He looked as tired as he was finally.
"You're quick in body and mind, Stiles. Figure it out." Marco replied.
He'd said enough emotionally sound things for a week. He was tired of speaking. Tired of all the empathy in the air. It stunk like hippo excrement.
Suddenly he noticed Scott looking at him.
The True Alpha nodded. Marco turned away.
He'd get his closure as well someday. He wouldn't sully it by watching others do the same.
Scott looked around at the others. Their faces grim as they looked at the desert floor. More than eight feet below Jackson rested eternally.
Scott dropped down to one knee and watched the ground. He didn't know why but he felt nervous. Even so he continued.
"I've never been to a funeral…." He didn't know who he was speaking to. "My—…. My mom wouldn't let me go. She said they're too depressing. I think I get it now. But being here feels right. What happened to you didn't. It didn't feel right. It won't. Because what happened to you wasn't right. You were an entitled jerk…. You were arrogant…. Insensitive …. And you almost got me killed by Allison's dad. But you didn't deserve to be changed and manipulated before dying. I don't think so. But I also know that there's a chance you would've done worse to more people. Maybe the right decision isn't always the one that feels best. Maybe that's what makes it right. It's difficult but better for everyone. I don't know for sure. Until then…. All I can do is avenge you."
Scott's claws grew from his fingers. Longer and thicker than before. No longer white. Now they were black as oil.
He dug into the sands over Jackson and drew a spiral into it.
The symbol used for those seeking revenge.
The others went in time.
Stiles came first, speaking of finding the one controlling the Kanima. And how he'd keep his Porsche clean even if he hated Jackson for driving it so proudly.
Isaac went next, wondering if he'd make first line now and apologizing for the dark humor.
Erica outright cursed him for making her feel like less than human on a daily basis.
Boyd prayed in silence.
Derek took the longest. But nobody knew what he said. He didn't want them to.
By the end of it all, his grave was marked by it. Many spirals in the sand. They'd be gone by the seventh gust of wind. But engrained forever.
All that was left, was training, and war. The one who controlled the Kanima was officially on borrowed time….