ELECTRIFYING TIES

Carter hopped off her bed, her good mood quickly fading as the pleasing warmth intensified into an intense heat. She swallowed hard, skin pricking with heat as her knees buckled before she completely collapsed. Her slender fingers gripped onto the carpet tightly, a pained scream ripped her throat raw while the fire inside her rushed to the surface.

The same persistent pain, which erupted in her hands when Aiden was attacking Scott, flared up again. Bright and powerful flames engulfed her bodily extensions, automatically frying the carpet as she continued to cry out in agony until her throat bled and blood dripped from her lips. The fire inched its way upward, trailing up her skin until it covered both her arms completely.

Another wail escaped her mouth, her vision going grainy while the flames burned away the sleeves of her T-shirt. The world suddenly whooshed into a whirlwind, Carter's body trembling as blood seeped out of her nose from the pressure in her head - she didn't know if she would last much longer, the excruciating pain becoming unbearable.

With one finally cry, a fiery force projected out from her entire body - flames searing everything in sight as the apartment rumbled as though it had been hit with a powerful earthquake. Carter's body toppled to the floor while everything else around her quickly followed; lamps, picture frames, and books clattered to the ground. The tan-painted walls now had black char marks making the room look as though someone had taken a torch to the wall. The carpet had morphed into a fiery pool around her, the edging of her blanket becoming inflamed as well.

Carter didn't have the strength or means to get up, let alone worry about her burning bedroom. Her heavy eyes watched as the flames on her arms slowly faded back into her skin, leaving her muscles numb and nerves fried. She rolled herself onto her back, closing her eyes while taking in slow and deep breaths in attempt to calm her pounding heart. Meanwhile, the flames in the room quickly diminished while leaving behind their ebony remnants of destruction.

She knew that opening the door in her mind would possibly affect her abilities as a Pheanix, but now she realized that it was becoming far more dangerous than she had anticipated. Carter could barely control the side of her mind that was a werewolf, and the other side of her mind that was a Pheanix was now allowing actual flames to engulf her hands and arms.

She didn't know if she could take the agony anymore.

Carter lied still, mindlessly picking at the charred carpet for what felt like hours - her head and chest protesting with every breath she took, muscles screaming out in pain from the slightest movement. She hadn't even realized that she was sobbing until her phone start ringing as she felt a tear slide against her nose. Pushing herself onto her hands and knees, she crawled over to her bed before reaching out and grabbing her phone.

"Hello?" Carter answered without looking at the caller ID, her voice cracked while she wiped away the tears with the back of her unoccupied hand.

"Can you - hey, are you okay?" Stiles' voice was laced with concern as he easily picked up on the saddened strain in her tone.

Carter gulped thickly, not wanting to burden him with the fact that she just set her bedroom on fire. "Yeah...no, I - I'm fine," she sniffled, twisting around so she was sitting on the floor with her back pressed leant up against her bed. "Totally, okay - what's up?"

"Um, okay..." Stiles trailed off. "Lydia and I found something, could you meet us at the school?"

"Yeah, just give me, like, five minutes."

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Carter had taken two of the five minutes to gather her bearings, allowing herself to regain the already loose grip she had on her sanity before she left her apartment. She hadn't been bothered to change out of her clothes. And to say that Stiles and Lydia were shocked to see that her T-shirt had been burned into a tank-top with several large holes in the fabric and the fact that Carter had black soot covering random spots on her exposed flesh, would been an understatement.

Despite what she looked like, she found herself lurking through the dark hallways of the science department of Beacon Hills High School. Down the hall her eyes locked onto two shadowy figures, approaching the brunette.

"Guys?" Carter called out, picking up her pace while ignoring the lingering pain in her muscles as Stiles and Lydia came into her view completely.

Stiles rubbed his hands together, his cheeks hallowing out as he released a long breath. "I think I know where Barrow was hiding."

Carter arched up an eyebrow, asking: "And where would that be?"

"Chemistry classroom," Stiles stated simply, then gesturing toward the classroom behind Carter.

He moved toward Harris' old classroom, Carter sparing a glance at Lydia, which the strawberry-blonde responded with a shrug - silently telling the brunette that she had no idea what Stiles was talking about. Turning, the two girls watched as Stiles approached the door, the duo quickly trailed behind him.

The boy had been eager to enter the chemistry classroom while Carter stood at the end of the line, closing the door behind them. They were surprising silent, but they didn't really need to be seeing as though the school was completely empty beside the three of them.

"So what are we looking for?" Lydia inquired.

Stiles didn't answer her, instead turning to the first door on his left that held all of the chemicals that were meant to be used for classroom lab experiments. When his hand effortlessly pushed the knob down and stepped through, Lydia's jaw fell slack in confusion.

"Uh," Lydia began. "That was supposed to be locked."

Stiles spoke up as he inspected the closet, "Yeah, I know. Notice anything else?"

Carter finally stepped into the room, immediately clamping her hand over her nose as the smell of chemicals singed at her nostrils. "Yeah, it smells like chemicals - like, really bad." She opted, just before her eyes widened, realizing what Stiles had been suggesting. "That's why we weren't able to catch his scent."

Stiles hummed in confirmation, crouching down as he inspected all of the containers to see if any of them had been messed with, trying to give himself the slightest idea as to what happened to Barrow - no one just disappears.

"He was in here," Carter concluded, Stiles' beam of light from his phone shining upon a mess of blood and staples. Her eyes widened, the sight confirming that Barrow was in the school, but also that he had been finishing the surgery that the hospital failed to complete when he miraculously woke up from the anesthesia.

"He was here," Stiles breathed out, agreeing with Carter, "performing very minor surgery on himself. You two were right."

"Then, why don't we feel good about this?" Carter asked, her eyes zoning in on the blood as Stiles looked up at her and Lydia.

"Probably because he was here to kill somebody."

Lydia looked at him with uncertainty, "But who?"

"That's what we gotta figure out," Stiles concluded, shooting up from his crouched position and moving back into the classroom all while moving around Carter and Lydia. "We could spread out, start looking for - anything."

Stiles automatically went to the cabinets under the table while Lydia moved down the aisles in search of something that could lead to who Barrow was going to kill. Carter, on the other hand, stood in the center of the classroom, her eyes locking on the chalkboard at the front of the class. On it were seven numbers, three were in one column while the other four were in a separate column.

Stiles seemed to notice the brunette's interest, squinting to see the board. "Carter, what are those?"

"Atomic numbers," Carter explained, her perfectly shaped eyebrows furrowed as she kept her eyes focused on the seven numbers that were written.

Stiles appeared on the left side of the girl, "Are they formulas?"

"Not really," Carter voiced, pursing her lips. "Nineteen's potassium, fifty-three's iodine, eighty-eight's radium."

From the right of Carter, Lydia pointed out: "The first two make potassium iodide."

"What about the other four?" Stiles asked.

Carter tilted her head at the numbers, "Six's carbon, eighteen's argon, fifty-two's tellurium, but one-hundred-and-thirty - that's raerden."

"What's raerden?"

"It's an imaginary element," Lydia announced, picking up the chalk and began writing the symbol for potassium.

Stiles narrowed his eyes at the letter, "Potassium is K?"

"From kalium," Carter began, picking up another piece of chalk to begin writing the symbols for the other four elements while Lydia worked on the first three. "The scientific neo-Latin name."

Lydia nodded, proceeded to write the symbol for iodine, the I being directly placed beneath the K as Stiles inspected what the last symbol was. Carter had been in her own state of shock, staring at the four symbols in front of her.

"Lydia," Stiles muttered. "What's radium?"

The strawberry-blonde wrote out the symbol, revealing the name that had been concealed behind atomic numbers. "Ra."

Stiles found himself voice the name aloud: "Kira."

"Uh, guys," Carter mumbled, her voice and hands shaky as she stepped away from the board. "There's another name."

"Whose is it?" Stiles asked, his eyes never wandering from Kira's name that had been spelt out on the board.

"Mine."

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Carter had been in a too severe state of shock to even consider driving to Kira's house, so she had been quick to get into Stiles' jeep as they raced to the Yukimura household. As much as Carter was worried about Kira and about herself, she felt panic settle in her chest just thinking about the fact that Scott was there.

Her panic had been amplified when there was a split second in the jeep where Carter let out a pained gasp, her hands wrapped around the back of her head as she voiced to the others that something happened to Scott.

Carter's heart instantly dropped into her stomach the second she saw her boyfriend laying on the street, clamoring out of the jeep after Stiles and Lydia, none of them stopping until they were hovering over him. She had been in such a hurry to get to him that she nearly face planted.

"Scott!" Stiles shouted, seeing that the boy was beginning to stir. "Scott!"

All of a sudden, the teen Alpha shot upward with a gasp. He looked dazed for a moment, blinking it away before his gaze fell upon Carter. His attention wasn't focused on them, nor was it focused on the fact that Carter was bearing a gash on her forehead that he knew was reflected on his own.

"Barrow," Scott choked out, looking up at them in a state of panic. "He - He took Kira."

Stiles nodded, standing up alongside Carter and Lydia. "We know. He was after her and Carter the whole time. I guess he thought Kira would be an easier target, seeing as though she doesn't have supernatural strength like Carter."

Scott's eyes immediately moved away from his best friend and onto his girlfriend, his dark orbs scanning her body for any injuries, but to no avail. All he saw was her burnt clothing and soot covered skin; a sigh of relief escaped his lips knowing that at least she was okay.

"Carter, what happened to you?" Scott asked, referring to her griminess.

Carter held her hands up, "I promise I'll explain later, but right now, we need to call Isaac and see if he and Allison found anything in the bestiary about flies." She pulled her phone out of her pocket, moving away from the three teens as she dialed Isaac's number. When he answered, Carter quickly spoke: "Isaac, something happened and I don't really have time to explain but I need know if you and Allison found anything in the bestiary about flies."

There was the sound papers shuffling on the other end, "No, nothing. Just stuff about flies and the dead - nothing else."

Carter let out a frustrated sigh, running her fingers through her soot covered hair. "All right, thanks."

Before she could hang up, Isaac quickly cut in: "Please, be careful, Car."

"You know I will," Carter assured the Beta, soon hanging up the phone before she turned to look at the others with a frown. "They couldn't find anything, but we need to think of something fast because that girl is about to added to the list of unsolved murders in the this God-forsaken town."

"We knew he was there," Lydia admitted, her eyes falling upon the youngest Hale. "How did we know that?"

Carter frowned at her, "Because you heard the flies, right? And I had that weird Pheanix feeling, or whatever."

"What do you hear now, Lydia? Carter, do have one of those feelings?" Scott questioned, his eyebrows rising as he waited for either girl to respond.

Lydia was silent, lips parting as tears began to sting at her eyes, growing aware of the fact that all of it was her and Carter's fault, that they were the ones who everyone had been relying on to fix it and find Kira. Her ears were wide open, head tilted to the side, but the only thing that filled them was the deafening silence.

Carter allowed her body to relax, feeling her throat constrict as she realized that if her and Lydia couldn't figure it out, Kira was going to be killed. Her own eyes stung as tears welled up in them, muscles relaxed, eyes closing as her shoulders fell forward - she felt nothing, only the burning remnants pricking at her skin, reminding her of what happened at her apartment.

"I don't feel anything," Carter mumbled.

"I don't hear anything, either," Lydia croaked out, noticing how Scott's head drop as he let out a small exhale in defeat. "I feel like I can do this, but I don't know what to do. It's like it's on the tip of my tongue, and I don't know how to trigger it." She was growing even more agitated. "I just - I swear to God, it literally makes me want to scream."

Carter's shoulders perked up, "Okay, then scream," The strawberry-blonde gave her an unsure look. "Look, I know exactly how good it feels to get that scream off your chest - all of the weight seems to be lifted from your shoulders. So, Lydia, scream."

Then, there was a deafening screech that rang through their ears, enough for Stiles and Scott to go cowering back while Carter's abilities amplified the intensity, turning the volume up to a whole other level. She clamped her hands over her ears, dropping onto her knees, feeling a warm liquid ooze out of her ears as a chorus of groans escaped her lips. But her body instantly relaxed when Lydia's scream slowly died out.

Scott bent down, wrapping his arms around Carter's waist as he slowly lifted her back on her feet. Stiles blinked a few times, hesitantly pulling his hands away from his ears, while Carter began to wipe the blood off her own.

Lydia seemed to crane her head up, attention honing in on the streetlight that was hanging above them. "It's not flies," she announced, spinning around rather quickly, only to have her three friends jump back. "It's electricity."

"Wait a second," Stiles spoke, Carter glancing toward the boy. "Barrow was an electrical engineer. He worked at a power substation."

"What substation?" Scott asked, turning to Stiles knowing that this had been the final piece of information they needed to find Kira.

But what they didn't know was that finding the young girl was going to bring forth a lot more danger than they had anticipated.

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After finding out what substation Barrow had previously been employed by, it was only seconds later when Stiles and Lydia went piling back into Stiles' jeep, while Carter and Scott climbed onto his motorcycle. At the speed they had been going, it only took minutes until they arrived at the substation, pulling into the parking lot.

Scott and Carter yanked off their helmets, gazing up at the building that loomed over them. It hadn't been enough to scare them because the two were quick in dismounting the bike and rushing toward the door of the substation.

They found themselves lost for a moment, spinning around in circles trying to catch a scent or hear voices, but to no avail - until, a loud clanking noise had come from their right. Not even seconds later, they saw electrical sparks flying off a chain-link fence. Carter's eyes widened when they landed on Kira, she was tied to the fence with electrical wires.

"Scott! Carter, no!" Kira cried out, gaining their attention.

Carter immediately glanced around in search of Barrow, trying to figure out where the hell he was before advancing toward Kira. Scott, on the other hand, had been quick to rush toward the kidnapped girl. Carter's eyes widened even further when a figure emerged from the shadows, Barrow holding a thick wire with sparks shooting out of it.

"Scott, look out!" Carter shrieked, holding her hand out in front of her to try and gain his attention.

Scott was just about to turn and face her, but Barrow slammed the wire against the chest, causing the teen Alpha to go flying through the air before colliding with a chain-link fence. Carter was only able to take three steps forward when her pained cry echoed through the abandoned building.

And little did she know was that as Stiles trudged down the long corridor, his warm pumping blood immediately stilled and ran cold upon the sound of her screams. It had been enough for him to quicken his pace, gripping the bat tighter in his hand as he burst through the door that Scott and Carter had previously gone through.

Stiles watched as Carter dropped to the ground, while her eyes flash their scarlet-orange as her body convulsed, electricity flowing through her body. Carter let out another strangled sob, body shaking as she watched Barrow move toward Kira.

"Don't..." Carter screeched, muscles spazzing on she lied on the concrete. "She's not - She's not the one you want!" Barrow glanced back toward the convulsing girl, eyes widening when he saw that her eyes were glowing. "I'm the one you want."

Carter staggered to her feet, grunting in pain as the electricity pulsed through her - it didn't matter, she tried to push away the pain as she took steps forward. She didn't care if he killed her, at least she would be saving someone who was innocent and pure; free from the life of the supernatural.

Scott's eyes widening as he watched the brunette approach Barrow and Kira, horror written across his face. It was as though the moment he saw Carter enter the crossfire, something shook him out of his pain. He was unaffected by the pain as fear settled within him as he pushed himself to his feet.

"Carter!" Scott shouted, lunging toward her.

And that was when Barrow turned his attention away from Carter and Scott, finally allowing the wire to reach Kira, Scott tackling Carter to the ground. Her body arched in pain as it collided roughly against the cement, Scott's body securely on top of hers.

All of a sudden, power stations began to explode, searing electricity spraying out of all of them. The lights blinded them, the duo looking away as Scott's body shielded Carter from the chaos erupting around them.

When the light began to fade, Scott and Carter managed to look up, watching in shock as Kira's figure came into view. The black haired girl seemed to absorb all of the electricity into her bare hands a look of pure shock on her face. Carter figured that Kira had no idea that she was some sort of supernatural creature - hell, Carter hadn't even known until that very moment.

As quickly as the sparks came, they disappeared - absorbed into Kira as though it had been the more normal thing they had ever seen.

It only left them with one question and it wasn't: What is Kira? But, Is she good or bad?

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Ooooh, what's happening to Carter?

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