╔═══*.·:·.☽✧ ✦ ✧☾.·:·.*═══╗

𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐏𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝐄𝐋𝐄𝐕𝐄𝐍

𝘬𝘪𝘭𝘭𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘱𝘦𝘰𝘱𝘭𝘦 𝘵𝘰 𝘥𝘦𝘢𝘵𝘩

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The next morning, Meilani stood a few feet away from the police van Stiles had somehow stolen to hold down Jackson until he woke up. They had handcuffed both Jackson's feet and hands in the truck and it was just a waiting game for the boy to wake up. Stiles had even texted Jackson's father and spun some lie about Jackson staying at a friend's house that night prior. 

Meilani was just glad the van was one that moved criminals from one prison to the next so it would be hard for Jackson to get out so long as he wasn't in the Kanima's form.

"Stiles! McCall clones, I'm gonna kill you!"

"Well, someone is lovely in the morning," Stiles grumbled, pushing himself off the tree he had leant himself against. He grabbed the backpack with the food they brought for Jackson and walked over to the van to give it to Jackson.

"Your boyfriend is gonna piss him off more," Scott chuckled and watched Stiles climb into the van, closing the double doors behind him. "I wouldn't be surprised if we find him dead in there."

"Guess it's a good thing Jackson's handcuffed," Meilani mused and crossed her arms. She heard Stiles say something about Jackson killing people to death and she rolled her eyes. Stiles really did have a way with his words.

Scott checked his watch and nudged his sister. "Hey, we should get going. We have to be at school in a half hour."

"I'd rather deal with Jackson than that," Meilani huffed, but followed her brother anyway to Stiles' Jeep.

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Meilani entered the classroom with Scott and they took the two seats that were just two away from Allison. She had tried to get the twins' attention, but before either one could turn to see what she wanted, the sound of heels snapped their attention to the front where Allison's mother strolled in.

"Your teacher was apparently sick today, so he had to leave early. Unfortunately, that means you're stuck with me as a substitute," Mrs. Argent smiled brightly at the class, leaning against the front of the desk. "Can anyone catch me up to speed on where we are? Ms. McCall, how about you?"

Meilani quickly flipped through her notebook to find where they had stopped the day before in class. Did Beacon Hills High really have to be crawling with Allison's family? It was hard enough to hide Scott's relationship with Allison and her friendship with Allison with Gerard in the building. Now that Mrs. Argent is the substitute, it'd be even harder to do that. Next thing she knew, Chris would probably be the lunch man and she'd really never get away from the werewolf life. 

As much as Meilani hated school, it was the closest thing she had to normalcy. Or at least up until Jackson became the Kanima and Isaac, Erica and Boyd became werewolves that wanted to rip her throat out along with Jackson's. Now Meilani knew why her mother used to jokingly say her and Scott made her want to drink whenever they fought and stressed her out. She was beginning to feel like she needed one, too, and she was still five years from the legal age of twenty-one to drink.

School had dragged on the rest of the day and Meilani couldn't have dragged Scott out of the building and towards the hospital with her any faster. Thankfully, Melissa had been on duty so the twins were able to get in to see Danny rather quickly.

"Hey, Danny, how are you feeling?" Meilani asked as she stepped into the room with Scott behind her to see Danny already dressed in his jeans. "My mom said you were being discharged within the hour."

Danny nodded and fixed his jeans so they rested comfortably on his waist. "Yeah, I'm just waiting for my parents to fill out the release papers. I'll be back at school by tomorrow."

"You've spoken to Jackson at all?" Scott asked and Meilani mentally slapped a hand to her face because he could have been more subtle.

"Yeah, I texted him not too long ago."

"So, everything is fine between you two then," Meilani noted, deflating slightly. If things were fine between them, then why did Jackson try to kill him?

Danny huffed and threw his wallet onto the hospital bed next to him. "Did the cops have to take my fake I.D.?"

"You didn't do anything to make Jackson angry."

Danny chuckled and sat down on the bed, unfolding his shirt so he could put it on. "How angry are we talking?"

"On a scale of one to ten - one being kind of irritated and ten wanting to kill you violently," Meilani responded.

"Jackson is always kind of at a four, but we're good. I was actually doing him a favor."

Meilani furrowed her eyebrows and exchanged a look with her twin, neither one knowing anything about that. At least, Jackson never had mentioned it to them. "What kind of favor?"

"I was recovering a video for him. I put it on my tablet. Which is in the trunk of my car, and probably still at the club," Danny sighed and bowed his head in exasperation.

"What was on the video?" Scott inquired.

Danny froze in his movements of putting his wallet and phone into his back pockets. "Uh, I'm not really supposed to say."

Meilani stepped forward and leaned her hands on her the end of Danny's bed so she could lean closer to him. "Danny, this is a matter of life and death."

"I'm not supposed to say."

"Okay," Meilani frowned and her eyes flickered to the empty space where Danny's fake ID used to be, an idea popping into her head. "What if I told you I could get your fake ID back?"

Danny gave her an odd look, but she was rushing out of the room before he could ask any questions and Scott was on her tail.

Meilani and Scott made it three feet from Danny's room when Melissa blocked their exit and they froze in their place, wincing at the stern look on Melissa's face. Not good. "While I think you and your brother being here to check in on your friend is all sorts of commendable, I've gotta play tough mom right now, even though I'm not very good at it."

"Right now?" Scott whined.

"Yes, right now, Scott. I got a call from your principal. You're failing two classes?"

Scott glanced at Meilani for help, but she didn't know how to save him from this one. "I - I know, Mom. That's why Meilani and I are going to study with Stiles right now."

"Do you know if you fail even one of your midterms, that they're gonna hold you back?"

"He said that?"

"Yes," Melissa sighed and ran a hand through her hair. "Your sister and all your friends are gonna be juniors, while you are still a sophomore. Do you understand, Scott? You cannot fail.

Meilani frowned when she heard her brother's heart rate speed up and her face fall, indicating he was upset. "Mom, go easy on him, okay? I'm gonna make sure he doesn't fail. I promise."

Melissa glanced to her daughter and narrowed her eyes for a moment before finally accepting that. "Okay. Thank you."

Meilani flashed her mom a quick smile before she pushed her pouting twin out of the hospital because they needed to hurry if they wanted to find out what was on Danny's tablet.

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After getting into Danny's trunk and not seeing his tablet anywhere, Meilani realized they wouldn't be getting the information any time soon. She couldn't even pick up a scent that could lead to who broke into Danny's trunk before her and Scott arrived at the club's parking lot. It could have been anyone.

They met Stiles and Allison in a secluded part of the woods that overlooked the town of Beacon Hills after Stiles called her to let her know Allison and him had to drive the van far away because the police were scouring the reserve for Jackson. The day was only getting worse and worse by the minute and Meilani was beginning to feel the exhaustion settle in and the weight of everything on her shoulders.

"If Jackson doesn't remember being the Kanima, he's definitely not gonna remember stealing Danny's tablet," Meilani said when it was suggested by Scott that maybe Jackson stole it while he was the Kanima.

"Why would he steal the thing if he doesn't even know what's on it?" Stiles asked.

Allison chewed on her lip, placing her hands on her hip as she thought for a moment. "What if someone else took it?"

"Then somebody else knows what he is," Stiles responded.

"Which could mean someone's protecting him," Meilani noted, eyes wide.

Allison nodded in agreement and pointed at Meilani. "Meilani could be right. The bestiary did say that Kanima looks for a friend, right?"

"So, somebody watches Jackson make a video of himself turning into the Kanima, and then just erases part of it so he wouldn't know? I mean, who would do that?" Stiles questioned.

Scott shrugged and crossed his arms. "Someone who wanted to protect him."

"There's something else. You said the only thing you found online about the Kanima is that it goes after murderers," Meilani recalled, turning to Stiles. "What if that's actually true?"

"Yeah, but it tried to kill of us remember? So how could that be true? I haven't killed anyone recently."

"No, I don't think that it was actually trying to kill us. Remember when we were at Isaac's the first time, it just went right by us, didn't it?"

"You're right. It just went right by you, Scott and I," Allison stated.

"And it didn't kill Stiles in the mechanic's garage."

Stiles shook his head and gestured to the van where Jackson was still handcuffed. "Yeah, but he tried to kill me and Derek in the pool. It didn't, but it would have. It was waiting for us to come out."

Scott gasped, seeming to catch on to what Meilani had been saying. "What if it was trying to keep you and Derek in?"

Stiles pouted at the twins and he looked like he was offended the twins ganged up on him. "Okay, why am I feeling attacked all of a sudden?"

"Because there's something else going on. We don't know what it is. We don't know anything about what's going on with Jackson, or why someone is protecting him," Meilani explained.

"Know thy enemy," Allison shrugged when the trio looked at her in confusion. "It's something my grandfather said."

"Alright, I got it. Kill Jackson. Problem solved," Stiles suggested.

Meilani whacked her boyfriend in the chest and shot him an unamused expression. "No. He risked his life for us. Against Peter, you remember that?"

"Yes, but what did we just find out? He got the bite from Derek. It's funny how he just got exactly what he wanted by supposedly risking his life for us, it's funny," Stiles remarked, flailing his hands around.

"It doesn't mean he's not still worth saving," Meilani countered. 

"It's always something with him though."

"He doesn't know what he's doing, Stiles," Meilani argued, annoyed that Stiles wouldn't just let go whatever grievances he had against Jackson. "Unless you forgot, I didn't know what I was doing either when I first got bit. You remember when I almost killed Allison and Jackson? I had someone to stop me, but Jackson has nobody. If we can save him, we should try."

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Later that night, Meilani sat in the driver's side of the van while Allison and Scott sat in Allison's car that looked out onto the town. She decided to let the couple have some alone time while she played around on her phone and Stiles went to find Lydia to apologize for not being able to talk to her when she was crying in her car a few days ago. He had felt guilty the past few days he left her when she was vulnerable because of the werewolf stuff that had been going on.

Meilani could hear Scott and Allison's heart rates both pick up and she forced her ears to not listen in because she knew exactly what they were doing. She'd rather not hear her brother get it on with his girlfriend so she focused all her energy to her phone. 

The shaking of the van alerted Meilani and she was quick to chuck her phone into the passenger seat and hop out to run to the back of the van. Her eyes widened when the back of the van was broken open and there was no sign of Jackson in the back or anywhere in the surrounding area. How the hell had he gotten out without her hearing him break out? She had super hearing and yet she couldn't hear Jackson escaping?

"What the - "

Meilani turned to see Stiles stood next to her and he had the same look of shock. "I don't know."

Stiles scrambled over to Allison's car and pounded on the window for the sleeping couple to come look at what happened. He walked back over with them and they stood in front of the van with matching expressions of shock and exhaustion. This was like a never ending cycle.

"I have to tell my father," Allison announced.

Meilani walked away from the van and tugged at the ends of her hair, letting out a scream of frustration. Why couldn't things just ever work out for her? It was as if God was playing a practical joke on her whole life and watched in amusement from up in the sky. Jerk.

"Meilani, he's gonna kill someone."

Meilani closed her eyes for a moment took a deep breath to try and calm herself down before turning back to the trio behind her. "Okay, tell him. Tell him everything."

"Babe, I have to tell mine, too."

"This is all my fault," Meilani groaned and rubbed her hands furiously over her face, another scream of frustration escaping. "

"Mei, it's not your fault," Scott assured and rubbed his twin's back comfortingly, letting her lean into his side and lay her head on his shoulder. "But we have to tell Chris and Noah, okay? We're just teenagers. What can we do on our own?"

"You're right."

Allison turned to Stiles and rose an eyebrow. "Stiles, how are you gonna get your dad to believe all this?"

Stiles shook his head and placed his hands on his hips. "I really don't know."

Meilani flashed her werewolf eyes at Stiles and leant off her brother. "He'll believe me."

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While Allison drove home to tell Chris about what happened, Meilani went with the boys to the police station to tell Noah about everything that had been happening. She felt horrible that her boyfriend's father was going to find out before her own mother, but Meilani really had no other choice. This whole thing spiraled out of control and she couldn't keep a hold of it anymore. They really did need help, help that wasn't Derek Hale.

When the trio stepped through the door that would lead to the short hallway where Noah's office was, they saw Jackson sat on Noah's couch in the office with the Sheriff's coat over his bare chest and his father stood next to him. He turned to the trio with a smug look and Meilani was shocked to see him there and wondered how he had gotten there. Last time she checked, he was the Kanima and didn't think he could control when he changed.

"Meilani, Stiles, Scott," Noah said, stepping into the doorway where the trio stood frozen. "Perfect timing. Have you met Jackson's father, Mr. David Whitmore? Esquire."

Jackson leant forward and the smug look only got worse. "That means lawyer."

Meilani squeezed her eyes shut and buried her face into Stiles' back. She really needed to stop asking herself if things could get any worse. 

It was obvious that they could.

AUTHORS NOTE

Hi hey hello

Welcome to another episode of: HOW MUCH WORSE CAN MEILANI MCCALL'S LIFE GET? In today's episode, we see her life from go from Hell to Hell-with-a-dash-of-something-else. It's only gonna get worse from here, folks!