MORE BAD THAN GOOD

Stiles stumbled along the rough terrain, leaves crunched beneath his feet as he ran through the crisp and chill night air. It nipped at his skin, his jacket flapping behind him as he searched high and low for his friends.

Then, all of a sudden, his body went crashing into a much smaller one, the teenage boy letting out a scream of fright, the light of the flashlight beaming upon the being's face - temporarily blinding them. It was then that he looked up, Carter Hale was standing in front of him, she let out a sigh of relief, glancing over her shoulder at Scott before returning her attention to Stiles.

"You scared the shit out of me!" Carter cried out, harshly slapping Stiles' arm as she tried to blink away the white dots the flashlight created in her vision.

"Sorry," Stiles panted out. "I think I found something."

Looking toward her best friend, Carter added: "So did we."

And with that, Stiles was back tracking with Scott and Carter in tow. All three teenagers had found something of use - if you considered a nasty coyote den important. Stiles crouched down in front of the rock opening, shining his flashlight within the confined space. He then crawled in, Scott and Carter had been quick to follow.

Carter had been a little reluctant, something in the back of her mind was screaming at her not to go in there, that it was wrong to invade the coyote's den. But they were trying to help Stiles' dad solve one more case while he still held the title as Sheriff.

As it turned out, Agent McCall, Scott's father, had been assigned to investigate Sheriff Stilinski - searching for good enough reasons to have him impeached. Carter already though Scott's father was a dick, from what Scott had told her, but that just proved her opinion.

"It's a coyote den," Stiles explained, allowing the beam of light to shine upon the young girl's belongings.

"Werecoyote."

Stiles glanced over toward the teens beside him, realizing that something must have happened while they chasing after the animal. Carter knew that she saw blue eyes glowing, but when she was face-to-face with the coyote, she was proven right.

Stiles reached out, grabbing the small blue winter-jacket lying in the den, lifting it up and holding it out for Scott and Carter to see. "You see this? This is Malia's. Remember, it's the same one she was wearing in the photo."

The three of them all huddled around the object in question, they were silent for a moment before Carter's attention moved away from the jacket. The Were-Pheanix reached out, grabbing a dirty teddy bear that was lying upon a rock.

Something snapped inside of Carter as she stared down at the plush animal, "We shouldn't be in here."

Stiles' eyebrows furrowed together, Scott growing confused as well and he was quick to question his girlfriend: "What do you mean?"

"She's not going to come back now," Carter explained, her eyes widening. "We just invaded her home." Glancing back toward her friends, she added: "Our scent's going to be everywhere - I can smell them now."

From beside Carter, Stiles questioned: "If she's not going to come back here, where's she going to go?"

"I don't know."

"Can you track her now?" Stiles asked, realizing that now they were actually inside Malia's den and that her scent must be flooding the den as of right now. "You think you got her scent?"

Scott shook his head slowly, "Maybe - but I'm better at this when I'm a full wolf. And I'm still worried that if I do it, I won't be able to turn back."

Stiles sighed, Carter instinctively finding Scott's hand and laced her fingers through his. She felt his hand wrap itself around hers tightly, knowing all too well the fear he held toward becoming a monstrous Alpha like Peter. Neither of them wanted to lose control, or to tap too far into their animal side.

"The door's still open," Stiles muttered, all of them knowing that they wouldn't be able to live their lives without anxiety until they finally shut the door completely.

"If we can't get to Derek, we're gonna have to find someone else to help," Scott explained.

"Like who?"

Realization suddenly flooded Scott's features, "This is basically a crime scene, right? I think it might be a little out of my boss' league."

"And more of my dad's," Stiles pointed out in realization, knowing that they could at least get the place blocked off.

It was the only plan they had left.

→

Blue and red lights flashed around the three teens, who were waiting off in the distance, watching as Stilinski began to examine the coyote den. Numerous deputies were roaming around, everyone trying to solve the case of the unfathomable murder that consumed half of the Tate family.

In the Sheriff's hand was a small blanket, moving away from the den and his deputies before making his way toward Stiles, Carter, and Scott. As he approached the teens, Stiles began rubbing his palms together in anticipation, Scott and Carter both becoming a bit nervous themselves.

Look over the three teens, Stilinski asked: "Are you two sure it was her?"

Carter nodded, "I look her right in the eyes. And they glowed just like mine and Scott's."

"It makes sense, Dad," Stiles piped in from beside Scott.

"But it wasn't a girl," Stilinski reminded them, still having trouble grasping their theory. "It was a four-legged coyote, right?"

"Well - Well, okay. But yeah, see, that's the part that we don't exactly have figured out yet." Stiles added, Carter had been quick to cut into the conversation.

"My mother, Talia Hale, and my sister, Laura - they could both transform into actual four-legged wolves. It was just something that was in their DNA that made their turn into wolves, and very plausible that Malia has that very trait as well." Carter announced, glancing toward Scott and Stiles.

Scott nodded in response before he spoke: "But if it was a full moon and she did change while her mom was driving then anything could've happened."

"Horrible things could've happened," Stiles spoke up. "Ripping, shredding, tearing things," he continued to list.

"Which is probably what caused the accident," Scott explained, Carter nodded her head in agreement.

"Think about it, Dad, all right," Stiles began, starting to explain the entire car accident from beginning to end. "They're driving, Malia starts to change, she goes out of control, the mom crashes and everybody dies-"

"Except for Malia," Scott interjected.

"She blames herself, all right, goes off running into the woods and eventually becomes trapped inside the body of a coyote." Stiles finished, Carter looking at him with raised eyebrows.

Sheriff Stilinski nodded in response to their words, "That makes sense." The three teenagers glanced between one another, slightly relieved by how quick he had been to agree with them. "In a Chinese folktale!" And just like that, their grins fell. "Kids, this is - this is insane. I need this kept quiet. The three of you, not a word. I don't want anyone hearing about this. I especially don't want Mr. Tate hearing about this."

Carter glanced up, noticing that Scott was turning his head, his eyes widened as though he had spotted something in the trees. He looked as though he was seeing something that no one else could see.

Through his eyes, a girl's back was pressed against a large rock, her dark hair cascading down over the ground as his own body towered over her, his claws extended as he prepared to slash her throat out. The girl soon threw her head back, allowing him to finally catch sight of who it was he was about to kill.

Carter.

The girl let out a bloodcurdling scream, his werewolf form let out a low menacing growl before looking up, his eyes searing a bright crimson.

"Scott?" Stilinski called out, snapping the boy out of his hallucination.

Carter looked at him, noticing the panicked expression on his face as the smell of fear flooded into her nostrils. She knew that he had saw something - something that scared the absolute hell out of him. And she realized that it had something to do with her when he looked down at her in frenzy, a look of relief flooding his face as he let out a sigh, his large hand finding hers before squeezing it tightly.

Scott gulped, trying to swallow the lump forming in the back of his throat as he made eye contact with Stilinski. "Sorry," He choked out, his gaze flickered back to the rock behind him seeing that there was nothing there. "What did you say?"

It was then that a new set of sirens pierced the air, all of them looking over to see another squad car arriving on the scene. Stilinski recognized the vehicle immediately.

"Oh, hell," Stilinski muttered.

Without a second's notice, Agent McCall and Mr. Tate were filing out of the vehicle, making their way over toward Sheriff Stilinski and the three adolescents.

"Mr. Tate," Stilinski solemnly greeted, obviously not liking that Agent McCall had brought the man back into the whole situation.

Tate's eyes were locked on the pink and white blanket in Stilinski's hand, instantly recognizing it to be his daughter's. He gingerly reached out for it with both of his hands, gripping onto it gently as though it were a newborn baby.

"Mr. Tate?" Agent McCall called out, the father's gaze still locked upon the blanket, nothing being able to tear it away from the object.

"It's hers."

Carter, Stiles, and Scott watched silently, knowing all too well that they had been the ones who had pulled those emotions out of the already broken man - they were reopening old wounds, digging the blade deeper and deeper with each discovery. Something pulled at Carter's chest as she watched, knowing the feeling of losing almost your entire family far too well. She could easily relate to the man's pain, she still suffers from the pain of losing her family to a blazing fire.

"All right," McCall said quietly, looking toward Tate. "Wait here."

"Dad," Scott had been quick to cut him off, his father only giving him a harsh glare.

"I'll talk to you in a minute," Agent McCall snapped, Carter could barely fight back the words that formed on her tongue, but she hadn't been able to hold back her glare as she stared at the man in front of her. The man who abandoned her boyfriend, who left the great woman who's taken her in as her second child, "I wouldn't mind hearing how your mom's okay with you running around in the woods this late."

And with that being said, he stepped away from the teenagers and Sheriff Stilinski was quick in following.

And they were left with trying to figure out how they were going to save Malia Tate.

→

The next day, things seemed to just gradually get worse and worse.

Carter let out a shaky exhale, the girl leaning against her locker. She had been in a severe state of pure terror - everything around her seemed to be toxic - poisoning her mind and body.

She was a walking time bomb, just waiting for that one thing that makes her explode. Which had been concluded when Carter moved away from her locker and began to make her way to Mr. Yukimura's class, she crashed into a body.

An apology formed on her tongue but when she looked up the words quickly got lost in translation. Carter's eyebrows furrowed together in confusion as she stared up at Scott, mostly because he had texted her a few minutes ago saying that he would meet her in class. The youngest Hale opened her mouth to speak, but before she could, four deep claw marks appeared across his throat. The sensitive flesh being exposed as the skin was slashed apart, blood spewing out of the wound and spraying Carter with the sticky substance.

A scream hadn't fallen from her lips - but she wanted to, though, scream and wail until the image disappeared. Instead, her hands clamped over her mouth to keep the sobs at bay as she backed away from the image of her boyfriend. Carter's shoulders bumped into several students as she stumbled backward. It hadn't taken long for her to turn away from Scott's bloodied body before barreling into her history class and almost falling on her face in the process.

The second that she was in the classroom, her hands immediately whipped at her face to try and get Scott's blood off of her. When she pulled her hands back her eyes widened in shock to see that there hadn't been any blood on her face at all.

A pair of hands suddenly grabbed ahold of her arm causing the girl to let out a shriek and jump away from the person. Allison stood in front of her, quickly re-grabbing her with a tight grip on her arm to insure that she didn't topple over since she seemed so disoriented.

"Carter," Allison muttered, slightly shaking her. "Carter, it's not real, okay? Just focus on me because I'm real, all right?"

Carter blinked a few times, staring at her before nodding once. Her words were stuck in the back of her throat, something that she couldn't seem to swallow, which just made the huntress opt on guiding her over to the back of the classroom where Scott and Stiles were standing.

Scott and Stiles instantly noticed the unsettling look on Carter's face, but decided not to dwell on the subject when Allison nodded to them - silently telling them that the Hale girl would be okay in a few minutes.

"Here's where we found the den," Stiles announced, pointing to a location on the screen of his Samsung tablet. "It's right in the middle of the hiking trails."

"Well, that could narrow it down," Allison informed, her finger moving to race over one of the trails showed on the screen. "Coyotes travel on fixed trails, but I think you're right about her not going back to the den. Coyotes don't like wolves and they're really smart. If they don't want to be heard, they actually walk on their toes."

Stiles immediately looked up from the screen, the tip-toeing part being the only thing his mind latched onto, "Coyotes tiptoe?"

Allison sighed, rolling her eyes before reiterating: "They tiptoe." And soon enough, the bell was sounding harshly throughout the building, Allison looked toward the ceiling. "I got to go, but send the pinned location."

The Argent huntress rushed out of the room, Carter nodding to herself as she processed her words. The three teenagers dispersed, moving to go find their seats. Carter made her way down the aisle of desk in the direction toward her own, but she was quickly stopped when Kira Yukimura stepped in front of her.

"Hey, I'm Kira," Kira quickly blurted out, her eyes widening as she realized what she had just said. "You knew that. I knew you knew that. I don't know why I just told you that again. Anyway, I have something for you." Kira began to pull off her backpack, Carter's eyes widening in surprise.

"You have something for me?" Carter repeated, despite how tired and scared she was, she felt the corners of her lips twitch into a small smile, Kira's grin seemed to grow larger when she noticed that Carter was actually slightly smiling at her.

"Yeah, about the Bardo," Kira quickly explained, Carter's head bobbed slightly. "My explanation was sort of all over the place, so I did some research and I printed it out for you."

Carter found herself nibbling on her bottom lip, not necessarily knowing what to say to respond to Kira's words. "You didn't have to do that."

Kira glanced up from her bag, "It only took a couple of hours."

Carter's jaw fell slack at her words, honestly shocked by how much time and effort Kira had put into figuring things out about Bardo for her. Because in all actuality, Carter felt terrible about the fact that Kira put all that effort into researching Bardo, and she wasn't even able to give Kira a logical explanation as to why she needed to know so much on the state between life and death.

"Wow," Carter breathed out. "Then you really didn't have to do that."

As she continued to dig through her bag, Kira muttered out in frustration: "I swear I printed it out."

"Kira," Mr. Yukimura's voice sounded, the two brunette girls glanced over at their teacher. He made his way over, a thick stack of papers in hand. "You forgot all the research you did for that girl you want to be friends with."

Kira's eyes widened, growing embarrassed at her father's words. She took the stack of papers from his hand, spinning around to face Carter sheepishly. Handing the papers to the Were-Pheanix, Carter smiled warmly, soon feeling her own eyes widen when she noticed how thick the stack of research was as it rested in her hand.

Kira must really want to be her friend.

With that, Carter slid into her seat beside Scott and behind Stiles, the teen Alpha looking toward her with a questioning glance. Carter waved him off with her hand, but shot him an assuring smile.

At the front of the classroom, Mr. Yukimura spoke: "All right, everyone. Let's get started. We were just talking about internment camps and prisoners of war. There's a passage in our reading that I'd like to go over in more detail."

Rather than indulging herself in Mr. Yukimura's lecture on internment camps, Carter found herself leaned back in her seat, flipping through the pages regarding to Bardo. She wanted to know everything, absorb as much information as she could in her brain before she went totally insane. She was still recovering from that morning, but honestly, it hadn't been the first time she hallucinated one of her friend's dying right in front of her.

It seemed as though an inky darkness was trying to consume her from the inside out, keep her locked in the depths of her mind; trapping her in situations her worst nightmares wouldn't even touch.

She was pulled out of her thoughts when the sound of a frantic heartbeat invaded her ears. Carter snapped her head up, noticing that Stiles was standing behind the podium at the front of the classroom, sweat beaded along his forehead, arms trembling and looking as though he was having a hard time catching his breath.

Carter slowly stood from her seat, quietly asking: "Stiles, are you okay?"

Stiles then stumbled forward, his hands curling tightly around the edges of the podium to keep himself from toppling to the ground. Carter shot forward, wrapping an arm around her friend. "I - I should take him to the nurse's office."

Without a second thought, Scott stood from his own seat and assisted Carter as they led Stiles into the boys' locker room. Stiles quickly lurched forward, grabbing onto the walls in attempt to keep himself standing. He stumbled, fingers curling around the porcelain sink as he fought to keep himself upright.

"Stiles, look at me, man," Scott began, growing concerned. "Is this a panic attack?"

Looking at his reflection in the mirror, Stiles assured himself: "It's a dream, it's a dream. This is just a dream."

Scott shook his head, "No, it's not. This is real. You're here. You're here with me and Carter."

Carter ran a shaky hand through her hair, wracking her brain for anything that could help prove to Stiles that he wasn't dreaming. "Okay, what do you do? I mean, like, how do you tell if you're awake or dreaming?"

Stiles failed his left arm around, gasping for breath as he managed to choke out: "Your fingers - you count your fingers. You have extra fingers in dreams." He was heaving over the sink, wheezing as his chest burned while his lungs screamed for a deep breath of life-sustaining oxygen.

Scott glanced down at his own fingers, raising his hands up in front of Stiles. "How many to do I have? Hey - look at me. Come on, Stiles. Look at my hands and count with me."

Stiles pressed himself against the sink, looking toward Scott's fingers. "One...two." He doubled over once more, gasping for air that refused to come to him.

"Keep going," Scott insisted.

"Three," Scott raised another one. "Four."

"Five."

Scott raised his other hand, Stiles spluttering out: "Six...seven."

"Eight."

"Nine," Stiles managed to get out, Scott raising his final finger. "Ten."

"Ten," Carter nodded at him. "There's only ten."

Stiles' eyes kept trailing along the extent of Scott's digits, counting them over and over again in his head just to prove to himself that what was happening wasn't a dream. For all he knew, he could've counted wrong - the dreams were playing tricks on him; sometimes even fooling him into believing they were reality.

And with one more pained gasp, Stiles' back slid down the wall until he collapsed to the ground, his chest heaved as he realized what had just occurred. Things were rapidly growing worse, not only for him, but all of them, and they had no idea how to close the door within their minds.

Carter and Scott slowly kneeled down beside their friend, Stiles gasping out: "What the hell is happening to me?"

"We'll figure it out," Scott began. "You're going to be okay."

"Am I?" Stiles questioned, glancing toward Carter, practically feeling the fear that radiated off of her. "Are any of us? Scott, you can't transform. Allison's being haunted by her dead aunt. Carter's envisioning everyone around her being brutally murdered. And I'm straight up losing my mind." Stiles shook his head solemnly. "We can't do this. We can't - we can't help Malia. We can't help anyone."

"We can try. We can always try."

→

Carter couldn't believe what had happened after Stiles' little misadventure in the locker room.

"Malia got into the school?" she asked Scott in disbelief, the teen Alpha laced his fingers with hers as they walked down the hallway.
Scott nodded, "And she almost put Kira on the menu for her Werecoyote Diet."

"Speaking of her," Carter began, taking a mental note on how the girl has probably been the most helpful without actually knowing what was happening, "she printed out, like, eighty pages worth of research on Bardo for me."

"You're kidding?"

"Not one bit," Carter assured, digging through her bag and pulled out the thick stack of papers before handing them to him. "Some of this might help, but I think it's just going to tell us more of what we already know. But we did give power back to a supernatural beacon, so I guess at this point, anything would be helpful."

Scott let out a low chuckle before turning his head, pressed a chaste kiss to her temple. Carter smiled at that, knowing that despite how long they had been going back and forth with flirting and dating, he was still able to shoot in quick moments that made her heart flutter.

There may have been a mishap in the locker room because Kira had been so adamant on becoming their friend, she figured that if she brought Scott, Carter, and Stiles' backpacks to them, then maybe she would actually have a chance at making some friends. Instead, it involved Kira almost being eaten alive by Malia, but now thanks to Scott, she was totally fine.

Scott and Carter looked away from each other, their eyes locking on Sheriff Stilinski and Stiles at the end of the hallway. Stiles glanced between his best friends before turning back to his father.

"Have you guys been listening?" Stiles whispered under his breath, the couple nodded their heads in response.

Stilinski then turned to make his way into the locker room where Scott had previously just saved Kira from being eaten by a coyote, Stiles following his father inside. Scott and Carter took off down the hallway, knowing that they needed to figure out how to turn Malia into an actual girl again.

Once inside the locker room, Stiles was making his way toward the two teenagers, his ripped apart backpack in hand.

"Guys," Stiles spoke, making the duo glance over at him. "I think I know what she was looking for." He unzipped his backpack, pulling out the baby doll they had found at the car crash site last night.

Carter rolled her eyes and muttered: "You took the doll from the car - why am I not surprised?"

Stiles let out an exasperated sigh, "Yeah, I thought you guys could use it, you know, for like her scent."

"Where did you get that?" a voice snapped from behind Carter, making the brunette jump in shock at how abrupt the voice came. She turned around just in time to see Mr. Tate yank the doll from Stiles' grasp. "Where did you find this? It belonged to my daughter."

Stilinski quickly made his way over, standing in front of Tate. "Mr. Tate, I don't know how you heard about this. If you got your own police scanner or what, but you can't be here." He reached out, placing his hand on Mr. Tate's side, prepared to guide him out of the locker room. Immediately, Malia's father recoiled, Stilinski pulled back the man's jacket to reveal a gun in its holster.

"I have a permit," Tate tried to justify, only for Carter to inch back until she was standing next to Scott.

Sheriff Stilinski, along with everyone else in the locker room, knew that a permit didn't give them the right to carry a fire-arm on a school campus. "California schools are gun free zones, permit or no permit. You need to leave, Mr. Tate. Now."

The two deputies that had been standing just outside the door went to grab ahold of Mr. Tate, but he refused to be escorted out without putting in his two cents. He shoved the deputies' hands off of him, anger flashing in his eyes.

"You find that animal. You find that thing!" Tate exclaimed, his wide with fury before he turned to exit the locker room, completely ignoring the deputies.

That was when Carter realized that they all started something they didn't know how to stop; created something that caused more bad than good.

It was a tornado - destroying anything and everything in its path.