CHAPTER 34

Today, Tristan and Malia were grocery shopping since their foodstuffs were running out quickly, which was not surprising when their huge appetite was taken into consideration.

The principal had called them during the week to ask why their parents were absent from the Parent-Teacher conference, and the answers they gave were the same. 

"There are on business leave."

The principal couldn't hassle them more than he already did, and it wasn't their fault that their adoptive 'parents' were out of town. 

They browsed through the shelves, checking out different items that they wanted to add to their list. 

"Bacons?" Malia asked as she held out two small boxes of bacon towards Tristan. 

Tristan shared a few looks between her and the box she held before he nodded. "Bacons."

"Yes!" She happily dropped both boxes in the cart and looked through more shelves for whatever could catch her interest while Tristan just pushed the cart behind her. 

"Huh?" Malia stopped as she saw Tristan abruptly stop moving and looking around. "What?"

Tristan frowned as a certain smell entered his nose. "Can you smell that?"

Heeding his words, Malia focused on her smell and immediately she caught the scent of what Tristan was smelling. "It smells like dried blood. It's as if something is dying." She noted. 

"Hmm." He nodded at her words and pushed his cart towards the direction of the smell he perceived. They both followed the smell to another section of the supermarket where it was heavier, turning around a corner to find Jackson Whittemore sweating profusely as he supported himself against a pillar. 

Noticing that he was no longer alone, Jackson turned around and came across the two people he'd had a quarrel with on the first day of school. 

"What?" His reaction was strangely confrontational but the two people didn't say anything and just kept staring as if they couldn't understand his words. "Weirdos." He muttered as he turned around and left. 

Watching Jackson leave, the two of them looked confused as they couldn't understand what was happening to him. 

Jackson looked pale as if he had lost a lot of blood, yet that wasn't the case from what they could feel. It felt like something else was killing him, and whatever it was, wasn't something normal. 

"Do you think it's poison?" Malia asked. 

Tristan thought for a bit and nodded. "It's something clearly poisonous to him, but I don't think it's something natural."

The smell Jackson gave Tristan was very weird and Tristan wouldn't lie and say the urge to kill Jackson didn't flash through his mind. 

It wasn't because he had some particular negative feelings towards the boy, but his instincts just told him to finish the prey. He shook those thoughts off his head. 

"The wound is on the back of his neck."

"What do you think caused it?"

"… I don't know." He shook his head and decided to forget about it. "Come on, let's go."

Forgetting about the weirdly dying Jackson, they went back to continue the reason they came out today. 

… 

Malia and Tristan had to walk to school today because their car refused to start. Fortunately for them, while the distance was quite far, it wasn't something that they couldn't walk through. They could have taken a cab but none of them were that eager to get to school. Fortunately or unfortunately for them, they had ended up running late because of that. 

"Quite the unique pair the two of you make considering you're both late. Mr. Hayes. Ms. Tate." 

Their chemistry teacher, Adrian Harris, commented as they both made their awkward entrance into an already filled and seated class. 

"Might I know the reason? Not to mention I specifically requested for both your parent's contacts." 

It wasn't a surprise, but none of them were particularly bright students and as it was the norm for academically 'average' students, science subjects were the hardest to pass. 

"Car troubles." They both replied at the same time and walked straight towards their seat, expertly ignoring the other part of their teacher's sentence. 

"…"

"… Well then." Mr. Harris could only look at them stupidly before faking a cough and beginning his lectures. 

Tristan sat quietly on his seat but had to turn around when he felt a gaze on him. 

"Eep!" 

The entire classroom fell silent and turned to face Stiles who had fallen off his chair. 

"Hehe. Don't mind me." He stood up awkwardly and waved his hands in embarrassment at the snickering and giggles at his expense. "Carry on."

"Meet me after school for detention, Mr. Stilinski." Mr. Harris' frigid voice silenced the classroom and made Stiles' face turn pale. As for Tristan, he didn't do anything bad, did he? 

… 

At the cafeteria, what was gradually becoming their favorite spot, Malia, Tristan and Allison sat at their table but different from other times, someone else was awkwardly sitting with them. 

Boyd had been sitting alone, like he always did, minding his own business before Tristan had joined him. 

Due to their natural disposition, they were able to pass the time without any form of conversation or awkwardness. 

That was until Malia and Allison joined them. 

The two girls had been quite surprised to find Tristan sharing a table with a stranger so naturally they had introduced themselves, forcing Boyd to do the same while Tristan remained quiet. 

"I heard your car broke down this morning. I could give you guys a lift home." Allison suggested with a smile. Boyd, who Allison sat at his right, stiffened as his anxiety started building up at having a pretty girl like Allison sit beside him. 'And that smile…'

Oblivious to Boyd's plight, Allison continued pestering Tristan to drive them home. Though he refused her bluntly, Allison was well aware that he didn't do that out of rudeness or any sort of hate for her, but assumed that he was shy. 

'So cute.' 

"If you don't want to ride with me, then I'll take Malia along."

Tristan's eyes narrowed at her but she huffed at his poor attempts at intimidation(her thoughts) by sticking out her tongue. Malia who sat beside Tristan just watched the two in amusement since she knew exactly what type of thoughts were going through his head. 

"Jokes aside though, my dad said we should stay away from the woods. Something's supposedly making the animals behave out of habit."

During the teacher's meet, a mountain lion had run into the school ground and had to be put down by Allison's father before it hurt anyone. That incident further solidified the claim of the random animal attacks that had been happening recently. 

"It could be that a higher natural predator migrated to the woods." Boyd muttered uncertainly but he was heard by everyone around the table, shifting their attention to him. 

"What do you mean?" Allison asked. Out of everyone, she was the most interested since something like this rarely, if ever, happened in the few places she's lived. 

Flustered by the attention heaped on him, Boyd tried his best to maintain a façade of calmness. 

"You know how weaker animals tend not to go near stronger and wild animals, like a lion's pride for example…" Seeing as they all earnestly nodded, Boyd felt a little confident and straightened his posture and continued. "It's also the same way humans in the past would migrate from their settlement if they are constantly besieged by animal attacks, or even why weaker people tend not to get close to strong violent people. It's just my conjecture, but it could be that the reason the animals are scared and running around and attacking people is because something higher up the food chain invaded their habitat."

It was pure conjecture on his part but the others, especially Allison, had to admit that it held a lot of merit. 

"But what can scare and drive away animals like mountain lions in a place such as Beacon Hills?" Allison asked. 

"Well there are stronger territorial animals out there like tigers, lions, even cheetahs." Malia tapped her forehead as she thought of more animals. 

"But this is Beacon Hills. Bears might be a probability, but do you think there are really tigers and lions around these parts?"

"… What about wolves? They are very migratory after all." Boyd interjected. "There's also been rumors of people hearing wolves howling at night."

"Wolves? You think other animals would be scared of a few wolves?" Allison asked in doubt. 

Boyd shook his head. "Wolves hunt in packs. If they did migrate, it doesn't mean that it'll just be a single pack. And besides, they hunt a lot."

Allison remained silent as she thought over Boyd's words and there was also what her aunt had told her about their family. 

"Allison?" 

Her thoughts were broken off as Boyd called out to her seeing as she was getting lost in her head. 

"Sorry, something just came to my mind." She decided to think of that later and focus on what was more important now. "So Tristan, are you going to walk home?"

… 

Sadly for Allison, both Tristan and Malia opted for walking back home, but unlike whatever she thought, their reason for doing it was completely different. 

They both knew that Boyd was spot on with his theory which was exactly why they decided to go through the woods. 

… 

[Stiles Stilinski POV] 

"You're pathetic." I couldn't help the smugness and contemptuous grin that slapped my face as I saw Scott writhing pathetically on the ground after he took a lacrosse ball to the nose. 

"Easy for you to say when I'm the one who took a ball to the face."

And there he goes complaining with the big gooey eyes like a puppy. "You can heal, can't you?"

"That doesn't mean it no longer hurts." He grumbled as he stood up while massaging his nose. 

"What was that again, um, 'pain makes you human'? Yeah, that's it! I guess there is still hope for you to be human." I couldn't help but laugh at the 'that's unfair' face he was making. 

"Come on. We still have over 30 balls." I rolled over a ball into my stick and got ready for another shot. 

"Remind me why we're doing this again?"

"For you to be able to direct your anger through fear of the consequences… and target practice for me. It gets boring on the bench without you, you know." I couldn't help but reminisce about the old times. 

"Sorry?" 

"Don't be. Life's unfair, I understand." I ignored the look he gave me and swung my stick with as much force as my noddle arms could muster. 

PAH! 

"Arghh!" 

"Yes! Wooh! Did you see that shot? That  could make me first line I tell you." I turned around from my mini celebration and saw Scott struggling to stand up with a busted lip. 

"What? That one was good, right?" There was no way that shot would have flopped on the big field. It was a master stroke. 

Scott gave me an irritated look. "I feel like you're having too much fun."

"Well duh! Everyone deals with stress in their own way, and I happen to deal with it the most on a daily basis because of your furry ass." I picked up another ball. "So yes. This is therapeutic for it, so deal with it. For both of us?"

"Argh! Let's just get this over with." He groaned but his eyes shone with determination and he prepared to receive another ball to his body. 

… 

PAH! 

"Hey, Scott. Do you think I'm attractive to gay people?" 

PAH! 

"Do you think Danny finds me attractive? I mean, I like girls but I just wanna know. Maybe that can be my plan B if I fail to get a girlfriend."

"S-st-sto-" 

PAH! 

"I don't think Lydia likes me that much. Maybe Malia? I think Tristan might kill me if I try that. You're not really helping me here man."

ROOOOOOAR!!! 

"… Oh boy… Sorry?"

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