CHPT 46: After War

Saturday March 18th, Beacon Hills…..

It had been a week since the Shifters went to war against the Argent/Warlock hunting brigade. Beacon Hills high was still under renovation and investigation after what happened. It had been that same amount of time since her mother ran off in a frenzy back at the night club. She could still remember the way the lights reflected in her eyes as she took off down the empty streets.

The memory gave her the sweats. And made her feel even worse for the fact that she wished she was back in school. Partly at least. Just to try and make things feel back to normal. Then again, they wouldn't be with her mother still out and about.

The redundant complexity of emotions was beyond frustrating. All the more reason to be occupied.

Instead, she had to stay in her house. A constant reminder of what had happened.

It all started on that Sunday night when she first came home. Then again maybe it was Monday by then— her and Lydia spent a long time at the vet helping Deaton clean up the others since they could do little else. She came home ready for sleep but not tired in the slightest.

The door was shattered. A hole smashed into her ceiling where something— someone, jumped through it. Dead Warlocks stationed at the house laid everywhere, throats torn and skulls crushed inside their modernized knights helmets. The blood ran so fresh she could've sworn she felt the liquid's heat in the midnight cold.

Her heart raced as she picked up one of their automatic weapons and headed for her fathers room. She couldn't take another loss.

She raced up the stairs with her weapon aimed and eyes focused down the sights. What she found upon reaching the top step was her father standing up to a horrifying existence.

Over eight feet tall. Skin as black as midnight with eyes like fire. Red sparks dance up its muscular arm like lightning. She could hear the crackling in the silence. It reminded her of a campfire in the woods.

Then the dreaded monster turned away from him and burst out the bedroom window on all fours.

Alison's heart dropped. When her father looked over at her finally she fainted.

Which is why she was bedridden now.

She fell down the stairs and got a concussion. How embarrassing.

Her phone buzzed suddenly at her bedside table. It had been every day. And for the past week she only checked for one name and one name only.

Another buzz. It sounded od—

It came again, this time she realized it sounded odd because it wasn't her phone. It was her window.

Alison's heart raced as she groggily rolled off her bed and grabbed the bow off her floor.

Suddenly the hand came again to the window followed by an opening and Scott rolling inside.

He looked different. Different as in older. Stronger. As if he wasn't at deaths door six days ago.

His hair grew. It reminded her of when she first met him, only styled a bit differently. More wild in a handsome way with its smooth backward waves. She could imagine him waking up and just running a hand through it before heading off.

"Alison…." Scott didn't get much else out as she dropped her bow and lunged at him.

They stayed that way for a while before she finally spoke.

"How'd you get past the guards?"

Scott shrugged as he held her, "I jumped… from the other roof."

Alison remembered the sight of Marco carrying all of them as he jumped across buildings re entered her mind and she shivered.

"You could get killed."

"I needed to see you. What happened here? It smells like death…. A lot."

Alison shook her head, "I don't want to talk about it."

Scott ran his hand over her thick brown hair, "That's fine. As long as you're ok. We can talk about anything else."

Alison sighed and hugged him tighter, "I thought we lost you in the Vet Clinic… Deaton said you had a lot of smoke in your lungs and silver wounds. He said if you didn't become an Alpha when you did you'd be dead."

She backed away and looked up at Scott, he didn't look as disoriented by everything as she was. It was frustrating in a way.

Scott nodded, "Yea. A lot of us got lucky. But everything's going to be fine now. The Warlocks are gone. We'll make peace with the Argents. We can coexist. We have to. I just have to convince your mom and dad. I think your mom will be the hardest."

"About that…." Alison started as they sat down on her bed.

***

She spent the following ten minutes quietly explaining what happened to her mother the night Scott and the others found Matt to be the Kanima's controller.

He looked angry.

"So…. Your mom is a Grey Lion now?" Scott finally said.

"My mom would off herself before ever letting herself become a Shifter." Alison replied before wiping tears from her eyes. "How can Marco change her though when he's not an Alpha..? What if she just got bit and panicked?"

Scott's crooked jaw clenched before he looked over at her with a saddened look in his eyes. As if he was saying, "Nobody told you did they?"

"No way….. no. That isn't possible."

Scott nodded in understanding as he studied her hands in his lap, "Deaton says it's possible. We saw it with our own eyes. He's like a pack of them all stuffed into one body."

"And you haven't seen him since then?" Alison asked.

Scott shook his head, "We've been searching for him. Nothing. And he hasn't looked at any of your texts?"

Now it was Alison's turn to say no, "Do you think he left? I mean he got his revenge."

Scott shrugged, "I don't know….sometimes I swear I can feel him. I still get those chills…. I have them right now."

Scott lifted his arm to show the hairs standing on end.

***

Crows cawed outside of his home like impatiently waiting vultures. They could smell it.

The death on him.

Marco opened his eyes in the dark of his room in response to them finally. The light of the morning sun peeking inside through his window, reflecting off his eyes to give him perfect vision in the dark.

He sat up, groaning in pain at the soreness of his muscles and slowly healing wounds. He wore nothing but black briefs, leaving an outline of sweat on his sheets. Revenge didn't heal wounds. But it sure did feel good.

The bed frame exhaled with a symphony of creaks and sighs as all two hundred and seventy pounds of him got off the bed and headed for the bathroom, sweated out silk sheets in hand.

He tossed them into his hamper and began washing his face and brushing his teeth. Everytime he shut his eyes, he found only blackness. Even when he tried to siphon the most recent of memories. Nothing. Like he had no control over that muscle. Like he'd only just become himself recently. Recently as in the night before.

Why…

Why in Anhur's name could he not remember avenging his fami—

He dropped his toothbrush and punched out his mirror.

His fragmented face looked back at him. As if every piece was someone else that made up the entirety of himself.

His top lip quivered, stuck between a human grimace and leonine snarl.

"Fuck…" He whispered before washing his mouth out and tying his hair up.

The bathroom was a place he was glad to leave in a rush, leaving him in the kitchen grabbing a ham hock that rivaled the size of his quads.

A clank of metal below him fell on his ears.

Marco nodded and took a gallon of water along with him as he headed for the basement. It was dark. And with each step downward, he transformed a little more….

His basement was large. Whoever own the house before them had a very specific use for it. What it was he didn't know. Something for business meetings. It had a lot of floor space and smaller rooms. Marco didn't have a business and he was only meeting one person. She needed a lot of space too.

He knew that as she watched him enter.

One of her eyes had a reflective feline shine to it. But only one. She wasn't fully changed. Becoming a Grey Lion wasn't like becoming a WereWolf. There was more to be changed and it took longer. Organs readjusted. Chemical hormone releases. Brain chemistry recalibrated to being able to commune with Lions and other Panthera.

In such a state— they called the in-between, she was neither. Neither woman or beast. She was in a grey area. Marco was told as a child that such a place was terrifying if you were weak. He watched men go insane in that place. Mental shortcomings frayed the changing process and brought up otherworldly hallucinations and feelings of being mauled by tigers and jaguars.

The woman watching him wasn't weak. She was hungry.

Marco took a bite out of the ham hock. His jaws crushed through the cold tough meat as if it was made of cotton candy. Then, he approached her, squatting down at her level to hold it out to her.

She looked different from when he last saw her.

Her skin, untouched by the sun had grown pale like her daughter, Alison. Her hair was darker and her eyes were the opposite. Almost crystal blue.

"Eat." He said.

"Die in a hole." Alison's mother replied while trying to force down a hiss.

"What— like you want to do?" Marco shot back. "I'm no coward, woman."

"You're sick is what you are. And when I get out of here I'm going to skin you alive."

"If I'm sick then what are you? We're the same now."

"I'm nothing LIKE YOU!" She roared and snapped at him. Blood flung from her mouth due to her gums tearing.

"You're right. In many ways you're nothing like me. But I question if that's true— if you're in your right mind. Or if you've been radicalized into stupidity by your hunting companions."

Alison's mother didn't speak.

"I traveled across the world…. the world! to bring back the heads of those that wronged my family. But you, you're ready to leave it after I've given you a second chance. Did you forget you too have a family to protect? Your daughter waits, alone and afraid, to find her mother. Either you end it here in your stubbornness. Or you learn. Learn from me, and see her again."

Alison's mother watched him in the darkness. Slowly her other eye began to shine. The in-between didn't have much of a hold on her. It felt like they stared at each-other forever.

Until finally, she took the food.