CHAPTER THREE
WOLVES AND MERMAIDS
"sorry if i'm up and down alot"
˚✧₊⁎*⁎⁺˳✧༚

     "I'M beginning to think you guys are only friends with me because of my powers."

     That had been the first words Shivani Caddel had uttered when she received the distressed call demanding her immediate presence. Despite very obviously not wanting to help out, she ended up doing it anyway. If anything bad, like really bad, happened while she was peacefully lounging in her bed— well, guilt would suffocate her. So the safest bet for inner peace was to borrow her mother's car on the pretense of 'going to the store' while actually speeding across town to help out the local Scooby gang. Was Shivani pleased with her role in the monster hunting gang? No, no she was not. Especially considering that tonight was a full moon, and she had to make sure she got home before the moon reached its peak.

     The latter was easier said than done. While chasing all across town for the moonstuck werewolves that were Boyd and some girl she had yet to know the name of, Shivani managed to lose track of time. The mermaid could feel the power of the moon seep into her skin every passing minute, but tried her best to fight it. It was ridiculous that the moon still had this type of control over her despite her having been a mermaid for so many years, but the girl had no idea how to fight it. One look at the moon at its peak and she was done for. Stiles had experienced it first hand before discovering her secret. Only, of course, he had no idea what was going on at the time.

     While contemplating whether or not she should tell one of the pack members about her. . . issue, Shivani was aiding them in their current quest. The good news was that Allison was right about the bruises pointing them in the direction of Erica and Boyd. The bad news was that the two wolves had been kept from the moon a little too long, and was currently feeling the onrush of moon-induced craziness stronger than ever before. Which was why they had called in the big guns. The big guns being Shivani and her very useful powers.

     "We are only friends with you because of your power." Stiles shot back playfully. His ability to joke in all and every type of situation was fascinating. The boy was like Peter freaking Parker or something, a snide remark or playful insult always ready at the tip of his tongue. If Shivani hadn't realized just how enamored she was with the boy, she would have snapped back twice as sarcastically. But any and every word died on her tongue as her mind swirled with thoughts.

The mermaid settled for an eyeroll upon realizing that no whitty reply were coming to mind. While Scott, Isaac and Derek was running around town attempting to catch the bloodthirsty wolf, Shivani was stuck with Stiles. "I can't believe Erica is dead."

When they had finally located the vault and accidentally let out Boyd and whoever this other wolf was, they had also found a body. Erica was dead. The poor girl had died inside that godforsaken vault. The Caddel girl found herself deeply wounded by the lost. While the Reyes girl had drastically changed upon receiving the bite, Shivani did truly like her. Though they barely knew each other, the mermaid found herself mourning the fact that they would never be able to get to know each other better. It made her all the more depressed.

For some old reason, the image of a young Erica wouldn't leave Shivani's mind. They had merely known each other a scarce few months, but she couldn't help but to imagine what the young blonde looked like as a little girl. It only aided to further frazzle the girl. The huge emotional impact of loosing someone to death what throwing her for a loop. While trying to desperately remain grounded, the Caddel girl couldn't help but desperately claw to regain her balance. Between everything that had happened the short time from end of summer till now, the comfort summer had brought her quickly dissipated. And with it, her hope slowly frittered into minute tatters.

Alas, chasing after wolves on a full moon whilst trying to stay under control herself proved to be quite the distraction from the messed up piece of news.

     Stiles had barely managed to pick Shivani up about the same time as the mermaid received a phone call. The distressed phone call came from Lydia Martin herself, and resulted in Stiles speeding down the road in the direction of the local pool. The rusty blue car halted with a loud screech as he parked it. The two didn't waste a second to jump out of the car, landing a sprint in the direction of the wailing girl.

     "Lydia? Lydia, are you okay?" Shivani crouched at the Martin girl's side, eyes frantically searching her. Her unruly, tousled hair strayed in her face, sticking to the dampened skin. Her mascara was smudge underneath her eyes, ragged breaths falling from her mouth.

     Lydia drew a shaky breath haplessly. "I'm okay. That, over there." Lydia paused, pointing in the direction of the body. "Not okay."

     Propped ontop of the life guards chair; a dead body. With a slashed throat and blood everywhere, the scene was grotesque. The mermaid pressed the back of her hand to her mouth as a deeply nauseating feeling settled in the very pit of her stomach. The threat of the kanima running around killing people had scared her, yes, but this was the first time she'd actually seen a dead body. She quickly averted her gaze when she felt the bile rising up her throat. Shivani drew a ragged breath in order to settle her thumping heart, deciding to redirect her her attention back over to the girl infront of her.

     Stiles was obviously just as stunned as the two girls. "Yeah, all right. I'm gonna call my dad." He decided, whipping out his phone.

     "I already called 911." The strawberry blonde managed to choke out as she stared blankly ahead.

     This seemed to tick the Stilinski boy off. "You called the police before you called me?!" He exclaimed as he clicked his jaw in disbelief.

     "I'm supposed to call you first when I find a dead body?" Lydia questioned with a blank expression.

     "Yes!" The spastic boy chastised loudly.

     Shivani rolled her eyes. "Stiles, call Scott and tell him. They need to hurry up and catch those damned wolves." The Caddel girl instructed with a sigh of exasperation. He obeyed, nodding as he walked off to call the McCall boy.

     "You think they did this?" Lydia queried as Shivani pulled her away from the scene.

     "Yeah, I mean look at the all this blood. Who else would've. . ." Shivani trailed off as her eyes stared deeply into the pool of blood. Glaring right back at her was the reflection of the full moon, finally peaked in the sky.

     "Would have what? Shi? Hello?" Lydia waved her hand infront of the mermaid's face. The girl had gone mute, a blank expression on her face as she stared. It was like she had suddenly become a zombie.

Neglecting to answer, the mermaid reached her hand out to touch the reflection. "Shivani what are you doing? Don't!" It was too late. She pulled her hand back, the thick red liquid coating her finger tips. The girl stared at the blood, finally meeting Lydia's eyes. Lydia watched the girl in utter confusion. That's when the mermaid made a break for it, diving into the pool before Lydia could stop her. "Stiles! Stiles, I need a little help."

Stiles waved his hand dismissively, still on call with Scott. "Yep. Throat ripped out, blood everywhere. It's like the frickin' shining over here. Two little twin girls come out of the woods, start asking me to play with them forever and ever, I'm not gonna be surprised."

"Can you get a little closer to make sure it was them?" Scott asked through the phone.

"Make sure it was them?" Stiles repeated in disbelief. "Scott, who else is going around ripping throats out?"

Scott sighed from the other end. "Please just do it."

"Fine."

Stiles hung up the phone, finally returning to Lydia's side. "What do you need help with?" The Stilinski boy questioned as he examined the dead boy. He had yet to notice the mermaid in the pool.

"That. I need help with that." Lydia replied, pointing towards the pool. Stiles followed her gaze, his eyes widened when he saw Shivani smiling up at the two. Her eyes appeared to be void, like staring off into the dark night. Her head was slightly tilted as she folded her arms over the edge of the pool. A playful grin was on display as she stared at the two.

"Oh no." The boy crouched to the edge of the pool. "Shivani, you need to get out of the pool. The police are on their way." He tried. The boy had yet to figure out just how moonstruck the girl really was. . .

"Why don't you come in?" The mermaid giggled. "The water feels amazing, join me." She tempted, staring up at the boy through her eyelashes.

"Join you?! Shivani are you crazy. You need to get out. Like, right freaking now." Stiles demanded. "What the hell is going on?"

"I have no idea. She just went mute when she saw the blood. Then she touched it and now here we are." Lydia explained.

Stiles threw a look over his shoulder, immediately spotting the reflection of the moon. "Shit. Shit, shit, shit." He began when he realized.

"What?"

"It's the moon." Stiles claimed.

"The moon?" Lydia repeated in skepticism.

"Yes!" He exclaimed, flailing with his arms. "When she first moved here, I went over to her house because, naturally, I was suspicious. And with good reason. I mean, I called it. I told you that—"

"Stiles, get to the point." Lydia interjected.

"Right. Well everything was going normal, until she suddenly got all weird. It was a full moon that night. The moonlight has to be affecting her. She's been shifty this entire night. I practically had to drag her out to help." Stiles frantically explained.

"Okay, so we have two bloodthirsty werewolves on the loose, a dead body and now a moonstruck mermaid?" Stiles nodded. "Great. What do we do with her? The police are on their way."

"We need to get her out and to the car." Stiles decided.

"You heard her, she doesn't want to." Lydia sighed, watching the Caddel girl flopping around in the pool.

"Right." Stiles nodded. "We'll just have to make her then. Help me pull her out." The Stilinski boy approached the edge of the pool, crouching down. "Hey Shivani. Come back over here." The girl smiled at the boy, immediately swimming towards him. Her eyes glistened as the moonlight shone strongly down on her. Stiles reached out, grabbing her arms, ready to pull. "I'm just gonna— wait Shi don't—"

The mermaid tugged harshly on down, resulting in the Stilinski boy tumbling into the pool. Lydia stared in shock. If it hadn't been for the circumstances, she would have laughed at the now soaked boy. Stiles resurfaced. Shivani swam over to him, slithering her hands around his neck. The girl stared deeply into his eyes. "Hi there." Stiles awkwardly said. He could feel heat rise to his cheeks with the way she was staring at him.

     "Isn't the water nice?" Her voice almost didn't sound like her own. Her tone was deeper, sultrier even. Shivani tilted her head forwards as she stared through her eyes lashes. The mermaid batted her eyes innocently, her plump lips pouted ever so slightly.

     "Erm, do you know what's even nicer? My car. Yeah. It's way better." Stiles attempted, hoping she'd take the bait. She didn't. His attempt caused her to frown. "Eh, Lydia! Do you think you could call Scott? Or Isaac? Or anyone?"

     "Don't you want to be here, with me?" The mermaid questioned.

     "Of-of course I do!" Stiles stuttered. "But we can't. The police are coming, and-and you wouldn't want to be here when they do, right?"

     The mermaid searched his eyes. Her hands softly slipped to his cheeks. "Don't you want to be with me? Just us two?" Her eyes flickered between him and the Martin girl standing a distance away making a phone call.

     Stiles swallowed thickly upon noticing just how close they were. "Y-yes. Just the two of us, alone. We can do that. But you need to come with me. If the police get here, we won't be alone." He could feel her breath on his skin as he spoke. Slowly, but steadily, he began moving them towards the edge of the pool. Lydia approached them, someone tailing behind her. "Him, really?" Stiles groaned when his eyes fell on the Lahey boy.

     "He was the closest." Lydia simply explained.

     The werewolf approached the edge of the pool, crouching down. Isaac couldn't mask the look of amusement playing on his face. "Wipe that look off your face and help me." Stiles grunted.

     Isaac obeyed, neglecting to say anything. Instead, he grabbed Shivani's arms, pulling her out of the pool. Stiles hoisted himself out, his shoes squeaking loudly as he stood up. "We need to get her to the car." Stiles stated, grabbing ahold of her tail. With Isaac holding her upper body up and Stiles carrying the tail, they began moving towards the parking lot.

     "Will she even fit into the back of your car?" Isaac queried as they moved towards the blue vehicle. Lydia walked ahead of them, making sure the police hadn't arrived yet.

     "She's going to have to. We don't have any towels to dry her off it, so I'll just crank the heat up in the car." Lydia opened the door to the car, letting the two boys place the mermaid in the back. They ignored her protest, slamming the door shut. Stiles threw the door to the drivers seat open, switching the ignition on in order to turn up the heat.

     Isaac took back off, headed back to help Derek and Scott out. "We need to figure out what the hell we're going to do with her." Lydia stated, arms crossed over her chest. Her initial plans for the night had been to run down to the store. But her mindless driving had lead her right to a dead body, and now they had to find out where they could stuff Shivani. "Can you just take me home?"

     Stiles ended up driving Lydia home after the police arrived and finished questioning her about the dead body. They had managed to find a blanket to throw over Shivani in an attempt to shield her while they drove away. "Why hasn't the tail gone away?" Stiles panicked. With the blanket covering the mermaid and the heat cranked up, she should have returned to her human form. Something was wrong. "What if she's stuck this way forever! Where am I suppose to hide a whole freaking mermaid?"

     They had decided on bringing Shivani back to Stiles'. With his dad out on duty, he was the only one with an empty house. So after dropping Lydia off at her house, he rerouted towards his house. Dragging Shivani into his home had been anything but easy. That tail of hers weighed a ton. By the time Stiles had managed to drag her all the way inside and then up the stairs to his room, he was absolutely exhausted. The boy had proceeded to wrap Shivani up in as many blankets as he could possibly find, desperately hoping she'd dry off.

     "This night is turning out a whole lot different then I thought it would." Stiles sighed, slumping down in his office chair.

     "We should go swimming." Shivani hummed, as moonstruck as ever.

     "Yeah, yeah." Stiles said dismissively.

     The mermaid had gone on and on about wanting to swim the entire car ride back to his house. Half way there he had started flat out ignoring her. When Stiles wasn't paying attention to her, a glass of water placed on his desk caught her eye. A mischievous grin broke out on her face as she extended her arm, her powers starting to move the water. "I think you should go swimming." The mermaid suddenly said, giggling.

Stiles turned his attention back over to the mermaid, eyebrow quirked. That's when it hit him. She retracted her hand, the water floating above his head crashing down. And just like back at the pool, Stiles drenched. The Stilinski boy let out a gasp of surprise as the cold water ran down his back. He glared at the mermaid. "Oh, you think that's funny, huh?"

Shivani nodded as Stiles took a seat next to her on his bed. Her giggle resembled that of a mischievous little kid. As much as he tried to resist, he couldn't help but to laugh along. Her laugh was contagious. Before truly getting to know the girl, Stiles never imagined he'd wound up in a situation like this. Trapped in his room with a moonstruck mermaid who's tail wouldn't go away. Yet he was having fun, more fun than he'd had the entire summer.

     "I really like your hair." Shivani mused after their laughter died down. Stiles could feel himself becoming flustered over her compliment.

     "Yes, you've told me that." He cleared his throat.

    "Well it's true." The girl said. "You look good."

He turned in face away as his cheeks began heating up, but her hand softly turned his face back. Her hand was placed on his cheek, forcing him to look her in the eye. Stiles could feel himself getting lost in her eyes for every second passing. The boy didn't even register how close they were until their lips touched. The kiss was short, but sweet. Once he came to his senses, Stiles pulled away with wide eyes. His cheeks burned as he stared at her, wondering what the hell had just happened.

Shivani was seemingly unphased by the kiss. She yawned loudly, snuggling the best she could into the sheets before falling soundly asleep. As her soft snores sounded through the room, she left the spastic boy to freak out over what had just happened. . .

˚✧₊⁎*⁎⁺˳✧༚

When Noah Stilinski finally got off of work, the moon had already disappeared of the sky, the blazing sun taking its place. The very last thing the sheriff had expected to witness when he peeked into his son's room to check up on him, was a girl. The man took a double take as he peered through the gap in the door. With suprised expression he retreated into his own room.

     He was almost as suprised as Shivani was when she finally woke up.

     When the mermaid finally woke up, she was stunned to find herself wrapped up in Stiles' arms. The boy hadn't been able to sleep after the kiss, so when Melissa McCall called Stiles to come check something out at the Hospital, he jumped at the opportunity. Confident that Shivani was deep enough asleep to reek any havoc while he was gone, he climbed into his jeep and took off down the road. And boy did Melissa have something to show him.

     She pulled the white sheet covering the dead body off, revealing the dead boy they had found at the pool. What was presumed by Stiles to hav been a werewolf attack haas infact not. The boy had ligature marks which indicated he'd been restrained before he was killed. As you may have guessed, not a very werewolf thing to do. Then, his throat had been slashed. The slit across his neck had been straight. A werewolf would have made a hell of a mark. This was certainly not the doings of a wolf.

     Stiles had managed to make the connection when he saw the second body; Heather's.

     The girl had matching ligature marks as well as a slashed throat. Seeing her cold, lifeless body on that table made him realize something. Heather wanted to sleep with her because she didn't want to be a seventeen year old curing. The guy at the pool was wearing a purity ring. And upon interrogating the latest missing girl's girlfriend, he found out that she too was a virgin. Stiles wasn't sure who was doing this, but the two bodies made him certain that the last gir would wound up the same way; head bashed in, strangled, throat slashed.

     Human sacrifices, Stiles decided. His theory scared him deeply. Werewolves running ramped? That they'd dealt with before. But human sacrifices? They were in deeper than ever before. . .

     By the time Stiles came home, the sun had risen. He dragged himself to his bedroom having almost forgotten he'd left Shivani behind. The Stilinski boy had been washed with relief when he saw a pair of legs instead of the orangey tail. Stiles was exhausted by the time he reached the bed, and the second his head hit the pillow, he passed out. That's when his father arrived.

     It was still early in the morning when Shivani opened her eyes. The girl lowly sat up in the bed as she began wracking her brain. What the hell happened last night, the girl wondered. The last thing she could remember was arriving at the pool after Lydia had called her. After that, it all went blank. Casting one last look in the direction for the Stilinski boy, Shivani didn't bother lingering behind to find out. Instead, she snuck out of the house as quietly as she possible could ( the floorboards of the house were ridiculously creaky ) and began her quest home.

     By the time she reached home, her parents were fuming. "Shivani Caddel! I've been up all night worried sick about you. Where the hell have you been?" Her mother yelled.

"I'm sorry." Shivani sighed in response. Her mind was already reeling. The last thing she was in the mood for was a lecture.

"You're sorry? That's it? Have you any idea what's been going on? A girl went missing from the woods, they found her body an hour or so ago. Before that, they found the body by the local pool. Do you understand how worried we've been? What's going on with you that makes you think staying out all night without letting us know is okay?" Her mother ranted on. Shivani felt guilt nibbling at her for causing her parents to worry.

When their daughter didn't respond, Shivani's dad began speaking. "You're grounded. Go to your room." The girl nodded, heading in the direction of her room. She shut the door after her ( Milton barely managing to slip inside ), a sigh of exasperation leaving her lips.

Shivani was going to have to face both Stiles and Lydia sometime soon, but she was intending to put it off as long as humanly possible. So, she switched off her phone and shut her blinds. The girl threw off her clothes as she climbed into bed. She hoisted Milton up, placing him on the pillow next to her. Despite having slept for many hours, Shivani was completely drained.

The soft purrs erupting from Milton lulled her peacefully to sleep, the last thing being on her mind being that damned spastic boy. . .

word count; 4058
a/n

we're already done with chapter three weoow. i am literally writing these chapters everywhere i go. today's chapter presented to you by yours truly has been written on the buss, at the mall, inside a nursery home so on and so forth ! also, here we go with their first kiss ! finally. anywho, i will try not to bore u guys too much with this lengthy authors note, just want to wish u guys a nice day and hope you enjoyed the chapter ! stay tuned for more, chapter four should be out as scheduled ! okay, love u guys, bye for now !

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