CHAPTER 143

[In Malia and Allison's room]

Malia put the phone down after talking to Tristan and inviting him and Boyd over, Isaac too if he wanted to come with.

"And here I thought our room was one of the worst ones." Allison mused. Tristan might not have said any word during the call but his groan said the whole story. "Let me take a quick shower before they arrive. Hopefully there's nothing wrong with the faucet."

"It's a little slow, but we can manage for a night." Allison informed after getting into the bath.

The lights in their room kept flickering on and off and the fan made croaking noises as it spun around – overall it was manageable.

Malia closed her eyes and let the discordant sounds of her surroundings play like a background tempo that made her relax to the point that she almost fell asleep.

She only opened her eyes when she heard Allison coming out of the bath and drying her hair.

"They are not here yet?" Allison asked, seeing that almost ten minutes has gone by since she entered the bathroom. "Are you taking a shower now?"

Malia shook her head. "I'll probably take one around 12, it helps me relax even better that way."

Allison shrugged and focused on drying her hair and turned around a minute later to ask Malia to call Tristan to check if they were held up but all she found was Malia sleeping peacefully.

"She was probably tired the entire time and didn't even know it." Allison muttered to herself with a small smile.

Malia had driven them all the way here after Allison had complained about her wrist during their second stop.

For such a headstrong girl, she was pretty considerate in her own weird way, one that was hardly noticeable, and she hardly ever complained on important things.

She picked up her phone and tried dialing Tristan but he didn't pick up. Knowing Tristan the way she did, she guessed that he either remained behind and muted his phone or he just didn't want to pick up.

She was about to call Boyd, maybe cancel if they were still in their room since Malia had fallen asleep but her hands tapping against her screen froze as she heard a small, almost silent, growl from behind her.

Turning around, confusion and shock danced around her face and painted a telling expression on her face.

"Malia, what the hell are you doing?" She shouted with a restrained voice and took a reflexive step back when Malia got on all fours, cold azure blue staring directly at her soul.

One hand front. One foot back.

Just like a natural predator, Malia stalked her prey silently and slowly, and like every cornered prey, Allison took a step back as she saw the look on Malia's eyes.

She was utterly confused by the current predicament she found herself in.

"Malia, knock it out!" She pleaded softly but the bare reaction Malia showed told her that her words were meaningless.

Too focused on Malia and trying to calm down the mental turbulence in her head, she didn't notice when she backed herself into a narrow spot between the bed and the wall.

The moment the jolt shook her focus, Malia pounced on her, her fangs aimed straight at Allison's jugular.

A teenage girl she was, and utterly confused at the bizarre situation she suddenly found herself in - she was, but she wasn't entirely helpless.

Was it luck or adrenaline that enabled her to reach for the pillow and put it in front of Malia's mouth, narrowly preventing the bite that would have killed her in moments.

She dove across the bed and rolled towards her bag. With a calm breath and steady deft hands, she zipped open the underside of her bag and pulled out two ring daggers and three black pebbles.

Just as immediately as her hands touched them, she threw two towards Malia who was a moment away from lunging at her and they exploded to surround her in a dark mist that reduced the bloodthirsty feral werecoyote into a heaving fit.

Not wasting a moment at the dawn of an opening, she threw one or her daggers at Malia, sinking the cold black blade into her thigh that finally made Malia release a human sound instead of a bestial growl.

Malia gasped as if she finally managed to get air after almost drowning in a freezing pond.

"What, huff huff, what happened?" She asked anxiously, her panic increasing as Allison kept silent and just watched her every movement with extreme scrutiny.

Moving from Allison, she frantically turned around in hopes of something explaining what was happening only for a bomb to go off in her head and she saw the state of the room, the bruise on Allison's left arm, the ripped pillow, and then the source of her pain – the dagger in her thigh.

"A-Allison… I swear, that wasn't me." Her voice almost cracked as she forced those words out after what she figured she had almost done.

To Allison no less. She had almost killed her best friend.

Seeing how close Malia's expression was to breaking, Allison sighed in relief that Malia was finally back to her senses. "Malia, it's alright."

"Allison, I just tried to kill you. How is that alright?!" Malia's nerves were still rattled so she ended up shouting louder than she had meant to.

Allison however shook her head. "Luckily, I managed to get you back before you stopped stalking me." And that had been Allison's saving grace, the fact that Malia was still accessing the prey, her, to judge its strength. Which was why she attacked the split second when Allison lost her focus.

"What happened, Malia? One moment you were sleeping and the next you were trying to kill me."

Malia shook her head but then froze as she could remember fully well what had happened, what she was doing.

"I was hunting in the woods, like I used to when I was a child. I couldn't get a clear view of the animal, but I knew it was one that frequently barges into my territory to attack me… so I decided to hunt it down instead."

What she had experienced was more graphic than that. Back to when she was still stuck in her coyote for, before Tristan, the crash site where her sister and mother died was frequented by scavenging animals and she had to fight tooth and nail with those animals, sometimes a group of them, not to desecrate the gravesite of her family.

"Oh my God!" Allison exclaimed. She hurriedly dialed Tristan's number but the call wasn't picked up so she dialed Erica, the same result.

"Malia, what if you're not the only one? There are four other werewolves and a vampire in this motel…"

She didn't need to finish the sentence as Malia had already yanked out the blade in her thigh with a hiss before pulling herself up.

"What the fuck? Does that mean we're being targeted or something is seriously wrong with this motel." Malia limped for a bit before she got back her balanced footing. "Let's go-"

"Allison! What the hell is wrong with this place?!" Their door was swung open by a frazzled Lydia who appeared to be on the verge of hysteria. "What the hell happened here? Why is there a bloody dagger lying around, and what's up with the smoke?"

"Lydia, we don't have the time to explain but we believe something is wrong wit-"

"SOMEONE PLEASE LISTEN TO ME!" Lydia's frenzied shout surprised them but they did remain silent to let her speak. "I can hear them. The voices."

"… I think someone is going to die."

Just this experience alone had made it abundantly clear that wasn't suitable for this kind of life. Who would be when they suddenly start hearing the voices of dead people and the crying regrets of the departed?

Malia needed no other prompts before she dashed out of the room and headed straight for Tristan's room.

Allison and Lydia quickly followed after her but they couldn't catch up with her no matter how fast they pushed their legs.

They came across Stiles on their way who said Scott suddenly started behaving very strange. A hasty explanation from Allison as they ran towards Tristan's room brought Stiles up to date.

"You left Scott alone but Tristan is with Isaac and Boyd."

Stiles' face paled as Allison pointed that fact out. The result was something no one wanted to see.

As for Malia, she felt her fingers and joints suddenly becoming cold as she arrived at where Tristan's scent was concentrated.

Despite her blaring instincts warning her of the danger inside the room, Malia ignored it without hesitation and entered the room and saw Tristan just standing there with dull eyes, doing absolutely nothing.

The others arrived and stared at Malia who was shaking Tristan who remained still as if frozen.

"Tristan, come on! Snap out of it!" She shouted, slapping and hitting him did nothing so she clawed at his flesh to bolt him out of his trance with pain but still he remained unmoving.

"I can hear them." Lydia suddenly said. "And I think he can hear them too."

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