CHPT 54: Dread and Entry

Monday, August 13th. Beacon Hills.

Three months had passed since The Alpha Pack sent their stray to them with a message. And for three months they waited— prepared. Sometimes it felt like they'd already attacked. Already made their moves on The Coyote, Wolf and Grey Lion.

The mere thought of them strained everything in every one of their personal worlds.

Boyd was the first to crack. He tried to leave. Marco wasn't planning on losing the last vestiges of his race. He beat him. And he showed him what would happen. Even so, he made it out with a promise to return in a shaky handed letter.

That was a two months ago.

Next was Beacon Hills own Romeo and Juliette.

Scott and Allison grew strained as her mother continued to battle with control over her beast. And Scott's mother found out he was a Werewolf. They had to go on break. It had also been two months since that happened.

Stiles father also felt the anxiety that waxed and waned overhead like the moon.

Marco could smell his alcohol on Stiles as clear as daylight.

And if things— somehow, couldn't get any worse. Isaac.

Isaac hadn't turned up in days….

The very thing that left them all silent as they trained in the pack warehouse at the edge of the city.

In the dark steel beamed open room, Marco's weights clanged and shook the area as he executed a set of hang power cleans with six hundred pounds of weight.

Sweat covered his dark skin like water. His dreads tied up over his head bounced with each explosive movement. Each rep demanded more power, pulling more of his true form to the surface.

As the others finished up their own trainings on punching bags and in baths of murky colored water, they too began to change.

As if all connected by a thread of shifting magic.

"Alright!" Stiles blurted out as he left the punching bag, trying to shake off the involuntary shift. "I think you've done enough of those…."

Marco held the weight over his shoulder, pausing at the end of the movement to look at Stiles.

"Maybe if you'd Fully Synthesize, it wouldn't feel so bad anymore." Derek added as he held the punching bag for Stiles.

"Not that easy." Stiles pointed to him while looking at Marco.

"We've been training all day, Marco. You try your best to look like a hardass but I know what you're doing." Stiles said.

Marco huffed spirals of steam from his nostrils and tossed the weights, causing everyone inside to cringe from the sound. Their hearing had only grown stronger in the last three months after all.

"I am a hardass." Marco replied, "And what exactly am I trying to do?"

Stiles walked over to the pickup truck in the center of the warehouse and sat beside Victoria on the backend as she washed the silver-water off her lightly steaming skin with a towel. She gave him a single glance before getting back to work.

"You're trying to work off our nerves." Stiles said flatly as everyone ended their training.

"Oh, Marco! Is that true my dread headed honeybun?" Erica called down to them as she flipped and swung through the metal framework lining the ceiling.

Marco's hand yearned to be holding a spear suddenly.

"Stiles you think?" Erica questioned after dropping down to the ground beside them on transformed legs.

"I think any food with hair on it is disgusting…. Unless it's a Full Moon." Stiles replied.

Scott smiled as he stood beside Derek.

"Stop being a smart ass." She hissed as she reverted back to human form, glistening with sweat.

"Well…."

Everyone looked at Marco.

"Same time tomorrow after school." Marco growled before heading for the door.

"I'll run the perimeter with Derek. The rest of you stay in pairs and call me when you get home." Scott addressed the rest of the pack.

Erica sighed as if she hoped for a wholesome moment. "Yea, yea."

As they all prepared to leave Scott's phone rang.

He answered it immediately and put the phone to his ear.

"Hello?"

"Honey…"

"Mom?"

"Your friend Isaac turned up. He's banged up bad. I think you need to get here…. Now. I don't know if he's delirious or not. He keeps referring to Red Eyes and giants…"

When Scott hung up the phone everyone was already ready to go.