Malia yelling woke Eli up. He gasped, sitting up quickly. He'd expected Malia to be next to him, to be right there. But she wasn't. In fact, he was alone, in familiar tunnels that brought nothing but panic to him. "Malia!"

Eli shot up quickly, follow her heartbeat before crashing behind a sheet of plastic, laying his eyes on Malia, who was strapped down, with some form of goggles on her eyes, bleeding. "Malia!"

Theo caught him before he could run at her. Eli tried to fight against him, but Theo had been stronger and more advance. "Let me go! What are you doing to her?"

"It's gonna help her find The Desert Wolf!" Theo shouted back at him, attempting to pin him to one of the tunnels, but Eli was strong as well, and he was shoving. "It's how the Dread Doctors kept sight of the chimera. It's how they watched you before I saved you!"

"Always find a way to bring that up, don't you?" Eli asked, Theos hands tight around his wrist as he kept fighting, eyes burning a golden shade as Malia panted in pain. "Don't you see that you're hurting her?"

"I found her! Let me go!" Malia was yelling, Theo turning back quickly as he finally let Eli go. The boy pushed past him, undoing the restrains Theo had her in while he yanked the goggles off her eyes. Malia leaned over in pain, gasping and groaning as Eli caught her from falling.

"Malia? Hey. Malia. Just try to breath." Eli tried to calm her down, but it was clear she was in a lot of pain. Eli leaned down to look at the marks around her eyes. They were healing, but it didn't dissolve the internal torture she felt. Eli grasped her hand. "Please work."

He squeezed his eyes shut, holding onto Malias hand tightly. Theo blinked in surprise when Eli's veins darkened to a black shade, a groan leaving his lips as his head went backward, taking what he could before Malia released his hand to stop it. Theo blinked. "Holy shit. You know how to do that?"

Eli caught his breath, leaning on Malia slightly. "I do now."

Malia reached back to rub his back. "I know where she is. She's in Beacon Hills."

"Okay, you can just wait here. It's totally gross in there, and girls aren't suppose to go in anyways. And obviously I'm not gross like those other guy, definitely not. But, just in case, i'll g-" Eli rambled on, being cut off by Malia walking into the boys locker room first. "Okay, you go first. That's cool, too."

Eli followed her quickly as a few of the boys looked in shock. Thankfully, Malia found Liam quickly. He gave Eli a weird look, getting the same one in return before Malia started to talk. "I need you to tell Scott something for me."

"Yeah, uh, why me?" Liam looked around alarmingly.

"Look away, dude!" Eli jabbed a finger at one of the boys staring their way. "It's not nice to stare."

He pulled his sweater vest when it felt like it was choking him, looking back to Liam as Malia went on. "Because I can't right now and Eli is also busy with me. You gonna do it or not?"

"He's not really talking to me." Liam looked down slightly.

"Aw, Liam. Really?" Eli frowned slightly.

Liam nodded. "You should get someone else. Literally anyone else."

The bell rung, Eli winced, still getting use to the new ears. Malia huffed. "Just tell him he was right about the tunnels. Just tell him that, okay?"

"What do you mean?" Liam looked in confusion.

"When we were down there looking for Eli and Hayden, we didn't know it yet, but we were a lot closer then we thought." Maia said back to him, the hair covering one of her eyes shook slightly as she spoke. "There's an Operating Theater down there. Down in the tunnels."

Liam looked between the two. "How do you know? You remember it?"

"No, mostly by scent." Eli shook his head at him.

Liam sighed. "Still not use to you having it."

"Me neither. Especially not in locker rooms." Eli cringed slightly, adjusting his footing.

"Just tell him, okay?" Malia nodded at Liam. "Tell Scott he was right."

"Do you wanna talk about it?" Eli asked when Malia walk off, leaning on the lockers. "I know we haven't really gotta the chance. I'm not pushing you aside or anything, i've just been busy with Mal- now that I say it, i'm realizing that's exactly what I did. I'm so sorry for pushing you aside."

"Eli, it's okay." Liam shook his head with a sigh. "I just-I just wish we could talk."

"Have you tried talking to him?" the Foxx boy suggested. Liam shook his head slightly. "Well, you gotta start somewhere, right? Remember when you broke my favorite board and I wouldn't talk to you until you talked to me?"

"Eli, I don't think that equals to almost killing someone." Liam said honestly.

"Uh, excuse you, I loved that board." he shook his head at him, Liam cracked a grin. "If there's anything i've learned the past few months, being pushed out of my shell a little bit with the whole supernatural thing going on, it's that talking will get you a lot of places a lot faster then you think.

Liam rose his eyebrows. "Eli the wise is back?"

"When did he leave?" Eli shrugged, flashing a grin over his shoulder as he headed for the door. "Take my words to heart, Liam! Take em to heart!"

"What's the problem?" Malia asked as Braeden looked down at the stack of photos, Eli on the other side of Malia and leaning on the table.

"Besides the fact that i've never seen this place besides a few aerial photos and we're basically going in blind?" she asked in return, pulling her gun upwards and pointing it at Theo. "Him."

"Yeah, we all have a problem with him." Eli hummed in response. "I mean, how can we not when he lied to me, stalked me, stole me, had a alpha bite me, preform a surgery on me, all without me knowing, by the way, and won't tell me who my alpha is?"

"Wordy." Theo hummed his way, he then looked to Braeden. "Would you mind not pointing that thing at me?"

"Doesn't feel so nice having someone do something without asking, is it?" Eli crossed his arms.

"He's coming with us." Malia confirmed, her right hand placed on Eli's lower back after she said it. "He's still not taking Eli."

"He tried to kill Scott." Braeden repeated.

"Love how much you care for me, Brae." Eli hummed sarcastically.

"Technically, I did kill Scott." Theo pointed out.

Braeden looked in disbelief. "I should kill you."

"Won't happen with a shotgun." Theo said back, nodding to Eli. "He can kill me if he wants to. He doesn't actually want to though."

Eli sat up straighter.

"Stop. All three of you." Malia cut in quickly as she looked in disbelief.

"I did what I had to do to survive." Theo said back with a shrug. "The Dread Doctors wanted everybody dead. I convinced them that it could just be Scott."

"And trying to manipulate me into joining you was your way of, what? Getting through hard times?" Eli shrugged his way. "Oh, Im so sorry, Theo. I should have known and taken pity on you."

"I saved your life." Theo argued with him. "I didn't want you to die. That's exactly what would have happened if I didn't put those plates in."

"Do you want me to thank you for giving me the choice to die or be on an endless loop of confusion because I can't remember anything that happened to me?" he looked in disbelief at the Reaken boy. "Do you have any clue what it feels like to know so many bad things happened but you can't even remember enough to not feel so helpless?"

"You could still tell Scott." Braeden cut in before Theo had the chance to say anything back.

"When we have Deaton back." Malia looked over at her.

"He's not going to blame you for the Desert Wolf taking him." Braeden answered back knowingly.

"But he might stop me from killing her." Malia said back dumbfounded, because she'd repeated it so many times by now. "Theo and Eli won't."

"Revenge comes in funny ways." Eli shrugged when Braeden looked to him, he turned to Theo right after the words left his mouth.

Theo gave a low chuckle. "I'm planning to help."

"Don't be so confident. She's known to carry pretty heavy firepower." Braeden answered in return.

"But, what do werecoyotes need with guns?" Theo spoke the obvious question.

"There's a story." she met his eye with a small huff. "I don't know all the details, but something happened a long time ago. Somehow, she lost part of her power. She's not as fast or as strong as she used to be. But she can still pull a trigger, and she's a perfect shot."

Malia gave a small shake of her shoulders. "The suns going down. We need to go. Are you coming or not?"

Braeden gave a small nod, grabbing her shot gun shells from the table. Malia grabbed Elis hand, walking out with the two following.

•

kylie speaks

i couldn't imagine going
through all theo said eli
did and then not even
remembering it. like, it
sucks in general, but not
even knowing what happened
to yourself has got to be on
any extremely different level
of confusion and panic...therefore eli's anger and
ungreatfulness toward theo
will always be valid and
justified.