CHAPTER 176

The sound of leaking pipes and squeaking rodents, coupled with the dreary and stinking environment, it didn't take much for someone to realize that they were in the sewers, specifically the one under Beacon Hills.

Half submerged in the waste water flow in the middle of the sewers was a large human silhouette of a writhing mass of flesh that was slowly bubbling and burping as if it was parasitically feeding on itself.

As if sensing something unnatural, the sewer rodents started making loud noises that grew louder and more unsettling as the mass of flesh bubbled.

The sewer became the canvas of a more chaotic picture as the rats and other sewage critters started injuring themselves and anything nearby in a rabid frenzy.

Around the writhing flesh, smoke started coming up from the ground while the mangled silhouette of fleshly mass started sinking into the concrete ground.

In less than a minute, the sewer became deathly quiet as it was splattered with rodent blood and their shredded corpse, and it was at this same time that someone started rising out of the ground in the smoke circle.

"Yes~" Their voice rasped with maddened glee as air once again filled their lungs. "I am free~"

In the empty sewer, only a maniacal laugh could be heard echoing through its pipes.

…..

Tristan's head shot up as he frantically looked around for something that he wasn't quite sure what it was.

"Glad to have you back, Mr. Hayes. Now if you could please focus and let the class continue, that would be great." The class laughed as they saw Tristan looking around confusedly after the teacher caught him sleeping.

"Don't worry, I understand. Sometimes classes can be boring." Allison, sitting on his right, whispered and winked at him.

Tristan, who was only paying half his attention on what was being taught, discreetly glanced around.

"What was that?" He muttered silently to himself after scanning the whole class yet finding nothing amiss.

His senses woke him up telling him that he was in danger and someone was in the middle of attacking him, but he saw and felt nothing of the sort upon waking up.

"I think these sleepless nights with Malia are getting to me." He shook his head despondently.

Malia's frustration were always on the high end at night, for obvious reasons, and falling and ascending between Alpha and beta status was fucking up her emotional spectrum – and Tristan was the poor sap who had to deal with it all. Well he was the only one who could deal with it but that was technicalities and no one cared about those.

"Hey Tristan~"

He groaned as he turned away from the group of cheerleaders cooing and waving coyly at him.

With how frequent he had been guzzling high quality blood ever since the start of the year, though he still had a pale skin tone, his features were now more finely shaped with practically unblemished skin, and eyes that he'd been told on more than one occasion sparkled.

If he had been any less resolute, he was sure he would have been eaten up by the entire cheerleading squad and in extension, half of the student female body.

He could practically cut through their succulent desires if it became any thicker.

"Rough night? You look totally lost." Allison commented while rolling her eyes at the laughing group of cheerleaders they walked past, silently snorting to herself. "At least they know the meaning of hands-off."

"The night was normal. Can't say the same about the class though."

"I feel you there. Spend the last semester fighting murderous Alphas and a dark witch only to get saddled with an uninteresting holiday… and then calculus and history on Monday."

"That's the part you miss?" He asked, looking at her weirdly, but not too surprised as he knew Allison was a closet adrenaline junkie.

She just shrugged, having nothing to say to that, and changed the topic. "What was that in the class? You kept looking around as if you smelled a dead rat."

"It was just an irritating feeling. I couldn't even tell what exact type of feeling it was." Tristan opened his hands as they got to the stairs and Malia magically appeared and absentmindedly walked right into his arms.

"Hmmn~" Malia's stiffening shoulders relaxed as she got a whiff of Tristan's scent. "This is better, hmmn~"

Seeing them openly behaving chummy at the base of the stairs, Allison felt personally attacked. "You guys are very cute, but how about not acting a scene out of a romance drama in front of half the student body?"

She could see some smiling and sneakily taking pictures of the both of them, and some were downright growing increasingly thirsty.

Malia groaned irritably and reluctantly moved away from Tristan's embrace.

"If you knew how comfortable and refreshing that was then you wouldn't have interrupted us."

"I see. Maybe I'll find out for myself then." Allison chuckled goodnaturedly, and in a bold move no one expected, she slinked naturally into Tristan's embrace, stunning said boy, Malia, and the watching students into gaping silence.

Now, why were the students surprised? Because it was basic knowledge how extremely territorial Malia was when it came to Tristan, which looked even worse to them with Tristan's natural reserved character.

She was more than ready to claw out any bitch's eyes if they tried any of their seductive saunters in her presence to Tristan. Even Lydia, the school belle, wasn't spared from Malia's claws when she tried toeing the line to provoke either of them.

"Mhmmn~" Allison hummed in content and just as reluctantly separated herself from Tristan who was looking at her with a raised brow. "No wonder you love his arms so much, Malia."

Malia who was being addressed was currently giving the innocently smiling Allison a dangerously critical look that soon left her face in place of a smile.

"As long as you know your boundaries Allison. If it were someone else then I wouldn't be so understanding." Was all she said which surprised Tristan to a great degree, but also confirmed what he speculated about Malia's relationship with Allison.

'She's replaced her dead sister with Allison or have at the very least accepted her as someone indistinguishable from family.' Tristan's face grimaced as he was hit with a picture perfect premonition. 'This is just drama waiting to happen, isn't it?'

...

Down in the sewers running under Beacon Hills, Chris Argent held a torch as he examined the bodies of the mutilated rodents scattered in this general area.

"Frank reported some broken pipes and cake down here to check… but ran into this. Whatever the hell this is." Behind him was the Sheriff of Beacon Hills, Noah Stilinski, looking around with an uncomfortable feeling swelling in his chest.

"Stiles, my son, said you were the expert in… paranormal activities, so I figured I should give you a call just in case we're jumping in waters over our heads with y'know… them."

"You mean 'werewolves' and the supernatural?"

"Yes… that."

Chris only chuckled at the way the Sheriff was trying to remain a certain distance from his side of the crazies, aiming to content himself with the barest of information needed.

"As for these," He pointed his torch at the fly buzzing carcass, "something scared them lifeless."

"Scared them to death?" Noah asked incredulously, almost doubting what his ears heard.

"Basically."

"They ripped themselves open and you're telling me something spooked them into a brutal self-massacre?" Noah asked again, almost disbelieving everything Chris Argent was telling him, that was if he hadn't seen what happened that night.

Even Scott, his son's best friend/brother, a child he's known since Melissa gave birth to the boy, was also a… one of them.

Taking a deep breath to focus on the important details, he inquired about the main cause from Chris.

"It could be a number of things but the common denominator is that something incredibly terrifying came down here. Something so naturally terrifying that they couldn't run away and chose to kill themselves; favoring immense pain over the level of terror they felt."

"Could it be, um, a werewolf?" He asked cautiously, not knowing the kind of answer he was expecting.

Chris however shook his head. "It's not Deucalion. Whatever it was, left these bandages behind."

In his other hand was a plastic evidence bag holding a roll of bandages with some black spots that looked like infected blood.

"I doubt it's even a werewolf." Chris speculated further.

"And why is that?"

"I don't know." He shrugged in showing that he was still as clueless as the Sheriff in respect to what caused this rabid suicide. "It's just a feeling."

"We're going with what your gut says? Is that really a viable action path for a Hunter?" Noah expressed his skepticism with crossed arms.

Chris just up and started going back from the road they came, his words traveling as he did. "We humans are also animals and being exposed to a lot of danger gives us something that is not too far from an animal's precognitive sense of danger."