STILES, MALIA AND I were now a three person study group and I'd be lying if I said I didn't feel sorry for Stiles. Between me so far behind in Junior year it was ridiculous and Malia not having a general clue he definitely had his work cut out for him.

But he'd done well tutoring her while I'd been in Mexico. She was a lot further ahead than I thought she'd be but her attention span was appalling. I thought Stiles could be bad with the ADHD but Malia was a whole new level. She had taken four breaks in the hour we'd been studying, the last one only finishing less than ten minutes ago, and she was closing her books and pushing them off the bed already.

I looked up from my text book on Biology when I heard the thump of Malia's hit the floor. I took my feet out of Stiles's lap as I sat on his desk chair pulled over to the bed and frowned at her as she reached for her phone. Stiles leaned over to pluck it out of her hands while saying, "Hey, we're not finished yet."

She rolled her eyes, pulling her phone back before saying, "Yes, we are."

"No." I argued, "We're studying. If I have to study, you have to study. There are things I'd much rather be doing instead." I said, briefly meeting Stiles's gaze with a knowing look in my eyes.

He understood it, too, because he dropped his head and groaned in pain.

"Like what?" Malia asked innocently. Clearly she couldn't pick up on all chemo-signals.

"Doesn't matter," Stiles hurried to divert her, "what's all the highlighters for, anyways?"

I sat forward curiously, looking at the three highlighter pens Malia carried around with her everywhere she went. She picked up the green first and said, "Green is for the things I understand," she said, swapping the green highlighter for the yellow, "yellow, is for 'I'm working on it,' and... red means I have no clue. I am mostly using red."

"That's a lot of red." I mumbled to myself before I glanced at Stiles and met his gaze. He seemed to be thinking the same as me. I thought I had a lot of work to do but Malia was miles behind me...and she wasn't even complaining about it. We had to continue helping her... even if this was staring to feel like some weird adopted supernatural sister thing we had going on.

"So, what's the secret?" She asked us then, "Why is math impossible for me and easy for you guys?"

"I struggle with math, you're not alone on this one Malia." I said to her.

Stiles nodded with me and chuckled, "Because we use Lydia's notes."

"Then somebody needs to give me notes on Lydia's notes, because I don't understand any of this." Malia responded, picking up my friends notebook and passing it to Stiles.

"Okay," he nodded before flicking through the first page, "Um... Lydia wrote these?"

"Yeah," Malia nodded, "What are they?"

Stiles stiffened, sitting up and making me freeze. He met my gaze, confusion all over his face as he said, "They're not math."

I put my feet of the floor and frowned, "What do you mean they're not math?" I asked him, reaching for the notebook. Stiles handed it over to me wordlessly and I looked at the mixture of letters, words and symbols on the pages. I flicked through them, page after page of the same jumbled nonsense. I shook my head to myself and flicked through to the very beginning, "Is this the whole book?"

"Yeah, I've been trying to make sense of it for days." Malia said to us.

I looked at Stiles and met his gaze, shaking my head in confusion, "Stiles these aren't notes."

"I know." He muttered, sitting up and reaching for his phone on his bedside desk.

"What do you mean? What are they?" Malia asked us in confusion.

I continued flicking through the pages of nonsense as Stiles held his phone to his ear, presumably trying to call Lydia. Meanwhile I shook my head, looking at Malia, "I don't know," I answered honestly, "the last time Lydia did something like this she drew a powerful tree we'd been looking for. It's some kind of sign linked to her abilities."

Stiles dropped his phone and shook his head with a sigh, "She's not answering."

I frowned before his phone started to ring almost immediately after his failed call with Lydia. For a minute I thought it'd be her until he said, "It's Scott," and then he answered the call and said, "Hey—"

"Stiles, I need your help."

My back stiffened when I heard his panicked tone and I looked at Stiles and said, "Put him on speaker."

Stiles nodded and did so, holding his phone for us to listen through and said, "You're on speakerphone, buddy, Alex and Malia are here."

I leaned forward closer to the phone, "Scott what happened? Is everything okay?" The last we both knew he was waiting in the hospital to see if he'd actually broken Liam's leg. The panic in his voice told me this was something more serious than breaking a freshman's leg.

"I-I'm not entirely sure what just happened," he said, "I got a call from Lydia, she was at the house of the family who'd been killed by the axe-murderer, but she said I had to find the boy who survived. When I got to his room he'd attacked a police officer, well more like killed and eaten him—" he said quickly.

"Woah, hold up a minute." Stiles blurted, his eye wide as he met mine, "He did what?"

"He was eating him, Stiles!" Scott replied in a hurry, "But my mom found him and he tried to attack her—"

Alarm flooded my veins and fear pounded through my heart, "She's okay, isn't she?" I rushed to ask.

"Yeah, fine, just a little shook up." Scott replied.

Stiles and I met each other's gaze and we relaxed somewhat hearing those words. If something ever happened to Melissa—or Stiles's father—we'd all burn the world to the ground finding out who and making sure they never hurt anyone again.

"I followed Sean up to the roof. He had Liam in a chokehold on the edge of the roof. I tried to get him to come down but out of nowhere the axe-murderer showed up and killed him," I rubbed my temples, trying to picture and understand the story, "Sean died and Liam fell off the edge but the axe-murderer had no mouth Stiles! It was so weird but then I remembered Liam had fallen and he was hanging off the edge of the roof but I couldn't hold on so I—I bit him."

My eyes widened in alarm, "You did what?" I asked him.

Scott sighed on the other end of the phone and said, "I called your dad but I need you both. I brought Liam back to my house. I don't know what to do. I'm freaking out."

I took Stiles's phone out his hand and said, "It's okay, Scott, we're on our way. We'll figure it all out when we get there."

He sighed again and said, "Thank you."

Stiles had already jumped off the bed and was shoving his foot into his shoe when he said, "We have to take Malia home first but we'll be ten minutes, okay?"

"Yeah," our friend said, "knock when you get there, the door is locked."

"You got it buddy." Stiles nodded even though I knew he had a key.

I ended the call and hurried to put my shoes on while Stiles rushed to get Malia to pack her books away but not before I heard her say, "Why don't I get to come?"

I dropped my head and sighed. Adopted supernatural younger sister indeed.

_____________

By the time we had taken Malia home the Sheriff had phoned to ask Stiles and I where we were.

He was pleasantly surprised to find out that we'd been at home studying with Malia while everything had gone down at the hospital. One word from Stiles about my meeting with the principal today had given the Sheriff a pretty good idea as to why we weren't chasing axes-wielding murderers around town. That, and the simple fact I just didn't want to.

I'd rather be studying than fighting supernatural creatures from Aztec temples in Mexico and chasing family murderers and that said a lot.

But we'd managed to hear more of the story from the Sheriff as opposed to Scott's rushed, confusing, version and it all started with Lydia.

Apparently our weird psychic, body finding, friend had turned up at the house of the family that had been murdered when Deputy Parrish was looking for evidence. Lydia had no idea why she was there other than the simple fact that she felt something.

She'd then found a hidden door within the walls of the family home that led down into some basement that had been converted into what they thought was a freezer to keep hunted game. Only the hunted game turned out to be human bodies...dead, half eaten, preserved bodies.

Suddenly the murdered family weren't innocent. No, they were cannibals.

Then the story coincided with what Scott told us, leading right up to Sean now dead on the rooftops of the hospital having been killed by the family axe-murderer with no mouth. The Sheriff told us he'd enlisted the help of Derek before letting us know he'd probably be late home tonight.

Then we told him everything we knew which was pretty much everything he did, missing out how Scott had bitten a fifteen year old freshman from our school. As far as the Sheriff was aware the altercation on the roof was between Scott and Sean only.

By the time we had hung up Stiles was pulling on to Scott's street and he abandoned his car on sidewalk. We both dived out and ran up the driveway, Stiles practically banging on the door.

When Scott opened it the two of us were already walking in and I looked at him with wide eyes and said, "Dude, what the hell?"

Scott shook his head wordlessly, shrugging once.

"What happened?" Stiles asked him as all three of us stood in the entryway, "I told my dad what I knew."

"What did you say?" Scott asked him, eyes wide.

Stiles shrugged as we walked through the house and up to the stairs, "Like I said, I told my dad everything I could."

"But you didn't tell him about Liam?"

I met Stiles's confused gaze as we walked side by side behind our best friend. His shoulders were tense and his eyes were still wide. Something had freaked him out on the roof whether it had to do with him biting Liam or not. His chemo signals were all over but I could definitely place fear and anxiety.

"You barely told me about Liam." Stiles exasperated in response before he asked, "What did you do with him anyway?"

We stopped by the staircase and Scott turned back to look at us briefly, "He's upstairs." He said slowly.

I arched my brow, "Doing what?"

And Scott actually hesitated to think about his response before he finally settled on, "Lying down."

I shook my head, "He's definitely not lying down, is he?" My friend just looked at me wordlessly, completely at a loss of what to say and I groaned, "Oh, what have you done to him?"

"Just... come on." Scott said, hurrying us to follow him and I knew something wasn't right when he guided us into the bathroom instead of toward his bedroom.

He didn't even look back at Stiles and I as he reached for the shower curtain and flung it open revealing a teenage boy tied from head to toe in duct tape lying in his bath with a strip over his mouth.

For a brief second I was in complete and utter shock as Liam looked at the three of us in total fear. It was pouring out of him. He breathed heavily through his nose and I heard Stiles sigh beside me, reaching for the shower curtain again. 

"Scott," I managed to utter calmly as my heart pounded on the inside. The shock passed and only the urge to beat my best friends ass remained but I said, "a word outside, please."

Stiles pulled the curtain across slowly and Liam made garbled attempts to beg for help. The curtain wasn't even pulled fully before I grabbed Scott by the back of his neck and dragged him out the bathroom. He groaned in pain, begging me to let go but I marched him to his room and pushed him down on to his bed, looking at him no doubt with fury in my eyes.

"What the hell were you thinking?" I yelled, "He's a kid Scott!"

"You think I don't know that?" He replied in exasperation, "I didn't know what else to do with him."

Stiles walked in casually after me, sighing as he sat down next to Scott on his bed and said, "So you bit him."

"Yeah."

"And you kidnapped him." He added.

"Yeah."

"And brought him here."

"I panicked." Scott tried to defend himself.

"No shit Sherlock!" I seethed as I began to pace back and forth.

Stiles hung his head and asked, "This isn't going to end with us burying the pieces of his body out in the desert, is it?"

Poor Liam's muffled groans echoed across the hall and I looked at my friend again, "This is why you don't do anything that isn't Alex approved." I hissed.

Stiles nodded and said to Scott, "Your plans suck."

"I know." Scott nodded, "Which is why I called you.... So, what do we do?"

I took a calming breath as Stiles looked to me for the answer. Scott's eyes however remained on Stiles, full of confusion and Stiles looked back at him quickly before saying, "This is Alex's forte. She knows how to deal with this."

"What gives you any inclination, Stiles, that I know how to deal with a kid my best friend has bitten and abducted?"

Stiles struggled to find words for an answer, instead he merely shrugged and guessed, "Because you're a girl?"

I swear there was steam blowing from my ears but I forced myself to take another calming breath and said to them both, "Get him out the bath and bring him in here." And when they both merely continued to stare at me I snapped, "Now!"

At the same time they scrambled to the bathroom and I heard their voices parrot over each other as they talked to themselves while trying to get Liam out the bath.

"Why can't she help?" Scott whispered.

"Shut up dude, you've angered her as it is." Stiles replied with a strained tone. I heard them both grunting and Liam's muffled sounds follow.

"But—"

"She'll kick your ass, Scott." Stiles warned.

They appeared in the doorway, dragging Liam in and I pulled a chair into the centre of the room for them to put him on. Only when he was sat down, glaring at the three of us quite heatedly did I look at Scott and say, "I will kick your ass, Stiles is right."

Scott's eyes widened for a moment, as if he completely forgot that I also had supernatural hearing.

"Liam, we're going to take the tape off your mouth." Stiles said from beside me, "If you scream, it goes right back on. If you talk quietly, it stays off. Got it?" When Liam nodded calmly so did Stiles, "Okay."

He pulled the tape off in one quick swoop and the poor kid grunted in pain.

"Okay, Liam, now you've seen a lot of confusing things tonight," Stiles said, "and more confusing things are going to happen because of the confusing things that happened tonight. Do you understand?"

I furrowed my brows and looked at Stiles in confusion.

Liam replied, "Not really."

"Good. That's good." Stiles said.

"I don't understand either." Scott said.

I shook my head, "Neither do I."

Stiles looked at Scott with narrow eyes, "Maybe you should tell him."

"Tell me what?" Liam asked, panicked.

I held my hands out in an attempt to be comforting and said, "It's okay, okay? Don't panic."

"Liam..." Scott said slowly, "What happened to you, what I did to you, which I had to do in order to save you, it's going to change you."

"Unless it kills you." Stiles blurted.

"Oh, my, god. Stiles!" I yelled in exasperation, hitting his upper arm.

He groaned, grabbing his arm and shying away from me, "Shouldn't have said that." He grumbled to himself.

I pointed to the doorway sternly and ordered, "Out!"

Still tied to the chair in front of us, Liam asked, "What?"

"Uh..." Stiles fell short and then the three of us turned when we heard Liam start to cry. Honestly, I wanted to cry listening to these two idiots try and deal with this but I didn't. I held it together, even as Stiles continued to say, "Uh-oh. Oh-oh. Is he... Is he crying?"

"Liam, it's okay. You're going to be all right." Scott said to him as comfortingly as he could, which wasn't the best. When Liam sobbed he crouched down in front of him, "You're not going to die."

"Probably not." Stiles quipped.

I growled, actually, physically growled and warned, "Stiles."

"Right, yup, out." He responded, walking toward the door.

I sighed to myself and looked at the young teenager sitting in front of me. I lowered myself to a crouch beside Scott and met his gaze through his tears and tried to offer him some kind of sympathetic smile, "I'm sorry about my friends, Liam," I said to him apologetically, "they're fricken idiots, alright? But I'm not. I'm going to get you out of this tape and then I'm going to talk to you about this. Yeah?"

He barely nodded at me, still meeting my eyes. There was no verbal response but it was good enough for me and so I looked at Scott and said, "Give me a hand?"

Scott nodded and together we ripped the tape restraining Liam to the chair. He stood up, back facing toward us both and Scott said, "Liam? Are you okay?"

"Look, we're sorry—" I nodded but he took me by complete surprise by grabbing the chair and slamming it into Scott.

I jumped back, swearing in shock, as I watched the wooden chair fall apart all over Scott as he collapsed on the ground. Liam completely bypassed me as I shouted to Scott, "Scott, are you okay?"

Stiles appeared in the doorway no doubt having heard the commotion and looked between Liam and our friend on the ground while I tried to help him up, "Liam, what the hell is your—"

Liam punched Stiles in the face in response, knocking him into Scott's tall dresser by the door and my boyfriend groaned in pain before tumbling to the ground.

My eyes widened, "Jesus Christ, Stiles!" I yelled, rushing over to him as he gripped his face, "Stiles, are you alright?"

He didn't reply, instead he tried to climb to his feet while looking at Scott and saying, "Don't let him get away."

The two of them scrambled to their feet and out of the door at the same time, tripping over one another while still groaning in pain and I stood behind and watched them in total disbelief.

"Get him!" Scott yelled and together he and Stiles charged down the hallway at Liam, all three of them screaming. I got out into the hall just in time to see them all go catapulting down the stairs, landing in a heap at the bottom.

I grimaced as they all groaned, lying on top of one another in a pile at the bottom of the stairs until Stiles yelled, "Leg! I've got a leg." They started to scrimmage on the floor, the three of them moving about and Stiles yelled, "I got him! I got him, I got him!"

And then they both realised that the leg they were holding on to belonged to the other and the front door was wide open, Liam nowhere in sight.

_______________

We never found Liam. We searched for almost two hours but the streets of Beacon Hills were empty. My guess was that he'd probably gone home and that going to his house was too far. He needed time to wrap his head around what had happened to him. Then we could try again.

It was more than obvious that he was transforming into a werewolf. Scott said he'd broken his leg but he attacked Stiles and Scott and made a run for it with no problem whatsoever. So now we would have the problem of another teenage werewolf on our hands. Scott had officially inducted his first proper pack mate into our massively dysfunctional pack. Poor Liam didn't know what was coming for him.

It was late by the time Stiles and I made it home. The Sheriff was still at work and I didn't hear him come home, if he even did. I didn't even have the energy to shower before crawling into bed. I barely managed to change into my pyjamas before I was out for the count. I fell asleep the second my head hit the pillow and I didn't remember anything until I woke up seconds ago.

I groaned quietly feeling a dull ache forming in my temples. With my eyes still closed I nestled my head further into my pillow and willed myself to go back to sleep, anything to get rid of the pain that was intensifying by the second.

"Morning." A raspy voice spoke from beside me and no sooner did I feel an arm wrap around my body.

Stiles pulled me against his chest and I let him, feeling the warmth of his body as he invaded my space and senses. The feel of his embrace around me was enough to help lull me back to sleep and I grumbled a sleepy, "No." I didn't want to get out of bed today. I wanted to stay in bed all day with Stiles.

He chuckled, his breath fanning against my ear as he held me, "Someone doesn't want to wake up today."

"I have a headache." I groaned, pulling my arm out from under the warmth of the sheet covering me to run my hand over my face and eyes, "Feels like it could shift into a migraine or something. I just wanna stay in bed today, I don't feel great."

"Alex," Stiles sighed behind me. I cracked an eye open for the first time, squinting. Thankfully his blackout curtains kept the sun out but the lava lamp on his bedside table still shone. I turned in his arms, facing him as he did me. He reached out to me, softly pushing my bangs behind my ear before he said, "it's a full moon tonight."

Both my eyes opened completely. All traces of even feeling tired had disappeared and I looked at him for a moment before asking, "Are you sure?"

"Positive." He nodded.

I covered my face with my hand and groaned before dragging it through my messy hair, "Shit." I swore.

Stiles looked at me with concern in his eyes and said, "You gonna be alright?"

"Yeah." I nodded with a frown, "Yeah, I'll be fine. Don't worry about me."

He dragged me closer to him and I felt his fingers glide across the bare skin at my sides where my shirt had ridden up. I placed my hand against our chests that were almost touching and looked into his hazel eyes as they examined mine, "I'll always worry about you." He told me softly before quipping, "That's my punishment for loving you. A lifetime of worrying about you."

"Yeah, well, ditto." I responded though a small smile tugged on to my lips.

Stiles shook his head playfully before his face turned serious and he said, "But you're going to be okay today?"

"I have control now." I nodded, "It's just a little headache reminding me what today actually is."

I did have control now thankfully. It hadn't taken me long to master it at all. After that first full moon the recovery of my memories kept me from shifting again that night. The next full moon was hard, too. That had been spent out in the Preserve—well away from Stiles—with Scott, Derek and Issac before he moved to France, hell it was before we even knew about the Nogitsune. After that though I was fine and I would be fine today, too.

"Good," Stiles nodded, "because between Malia and Liam we'll have a lot on our plates, today."

My brows furrowed as I said, "Malia?"

Stiles nodded again, "She's close but there quite yet."

Christ, we did have our work cut out for us today. For some reason I thought Malia would be able to manage the shift on her own but I guess not.

"Where does she go?" I asked him.

"Lydia's lake house."

I grimaced, imagining the destruction and said sarcastically, "I bet Lydia loves that."

He nodded and chuckled, "Oh yeah. She's thrilled."

We laid there for a minute, starting at one another before Stiles's phone started to ring. He turned over to retrieve it from his bedside table with a groan before he said, "It's Scott." And then he looked to the clock and said, "We should get up, we're going to be late."

He accepted the incoming call, holding his phone to his ear while I rolled on to my back and groaned.

So much for a day in bed.

___________

A/N; a little short chapter for you all. Updates for this will become regular again but I'm not going to be sticking to a schedule. The amount of all nighters I pulled when I had an update schedule for Ethereal was unhealthy.