"Right. No, the other right, Nathan."
My mother pulled at the black silk fabric with an impatient sigh, undoing the knot I had taken five minutes to ruin and starting from scratch.
"Stay still," she ordered, her fingers moving with a dexterity that would make a surgeon envious. "You're vibrating. Too much coffee?"
"No," I muttered, forcing my shoulders to relax. "Just... pent-up energy."
It wasn't coffee. It was mana. Since the training with my father in the backyard, my body felt like a live wire. The expansion to 5,000 points had recalibrated my nervous system. I wasn't just "standing still"; I was unconsciously calculating escape vectors from the living room, analyzing the structural integrity of the chandelier above us, and measuring my mother's pulse by the movement of the vein in her neck.
Level 5 Vision wouldn't turn off. It was like trying to sleep with your eyes open in a room full of strobe lights.
"There," she gave a final pat to the perfect Windsor knot and stepped back, assessing me with critical eyes. "Now that's better. You look like a civilized human being and not a fashion fugitive."
I looked in the mirror. The Italian suit fit well, hiding the muscular tension and, metaphorically, the invisible grimoire and the weight of that morning's choices.
"Thanks, Mom. It's... symmetrical."
She arched an eyebrow, crossing her arms.
"Symmetrical. What a warm compliment." She shook her head, an amused smile playing on her lips. "You're spending too much time with your father. You're starting to talk like life is an equation."
"It's a useful hobby," I deflected, adjusting my cufflinks.
The silence that followed was different. It lost the lightness of routine and gained the weight of maternal curiosity, which is, arguably, the most dangerous force in the universe.
"So..." she began, picking up a lint roller to remove an imaginary speck from my shoulder. "Who is the lucky girl who gets the privilege of messing up this symmetry tonight?"
I froze for a millisecond. The inevitable question.
"No one," I replied, keeping my tone neutral. "I'm going alone."
Her hand with the roller stopped mid-air. She looked at me through the mirror reflection, her eyes narrowing in a mix of shock and offense.
"Alone?" she repeated the word as if it were a curse. "Nathan, you have a car that costs more than most people's houses, great grades, and you just inherited the good looks from my side of the family... and you're going to the formal alone?"
"It's a social event, not Noah's Ark, Mom. I don't need to enter in pairs."
"It's the Winter Formal!" she protested, gesturing with the roller. "It's where memories are made. It's where..." She stopped, analyzing me deeper. Her smile vanished, replaced by sharp perception. "Wait. You didn't invite anyone... or you didn't invite Allison?"
My eyes darted to the side involuntarily.
"What? Where did you get that from?"
"Oh, please," she huffed, going back to attacking my jacket with the lint roller. "I'm your mother, I'm not blind. I saw how you talked about her when you told me about the first days of school. And I saw how quiet you get when her name comes up."
"Allison is... complicated," I tried to argue, using logic. "Her family is complicated. Her ex-boyfriend is my friend and has anger issues. Statistically, it's a bad idea."
My mother stopped in front of me, holding my face with both hands, forcing me to look at her.
"Nathan, stop calculating the odds. You're not solving a math problem. You're talking about a girl who clearly affects you."
I felt heat rise up my neck. It wasn't just embarrassment; it was the frustration of being read so easily when I was trying so hard to be an impenetrable fortress of magical secrets.
"I'm not going with her because it would be dangerous," I let slip, more honest than I intended.
She stopped. The playfulness vanished from her eyes.
"Dangerous?" she asked quietly.
"The dance..." I sought a quick excuse. "There's a lot of school politics involved. Jackson, Lydia... it's a social minefield. I prefer to go as an observer. It's safer."
She let go of me, smoothing my suit lapel one last time. There was a subtle sadness in her gaze now.
"You're growing up too fast, Nathan," she murmured. "And you're getting too serious. Just like Marcus."
She stepped away and grabbed the Charger keys from the coffee table, tossing them to me. I caught them in the air without even looking, pure reflex.
"Go," she said, forcing an encouraging smile. "But do me a favor?"
"Anything."
"Try to have fun, even if it's by accident. And if the Argent girl is there... ask her to dance. To hell with statistics."
I gripped the keys tightly, feeling the cold metal against my palm.
"I'll try," I promised.
I walked to the door, feeling the weight of my grimoire in my backpack and the responsibility of keeping Jackson in line and Allison alive.
"Oh, and Nathan?" she called out before I left.
I stopped with my hand on the doorknob.
"Yes?"
"If that suit comes back torn or smelling like smoke... you're grounded until you're thirty."
I smiled faintly. She had no idea how real that possibility was.
"Noted, Mom."
I closed the door and breathed in the cold night air. The calm was over. Now, it was showtime.
The Charger's V8 rumbled low, a constant vibration traveling up the steering wheel and anchoring my hands to reality, while the dark road of Beacon Hills blurred past the windows.
I turned off the radio. I needed silence to hear my own thoughts.
The night was cold, but it wasn't the temperature that bothered me. It was the atmospheric pressure. My mana sensed the storm coming before the clouds even formed.
My eyes scanned the empty road, but my mind was miles away, dissecting the scenario awaiting me at the school gym.
Allison.
The first domino piece.
I saw her in the hallway, saw it in her eyes. She was breaking. The pressure from the Argent family on one side, Scott's supernatural mess on the other. She was a normal girl being crushed between two warring worlds, and Scott... as much as he tried, he was a terrible pillar of support right now. He was too busy trying not to turn and keeping his grades up to notice his girlfriend was drowning in paranoia and expectations.
If I didn't intervene, Kate would use that fragility to turn her niece into a perfect soldier. And I couldn't let that happen. Not to Allison.
I took a deep breath, turning onto the main avenue.
Lydia.
This was the part that left a bitter taste in my mouth.
I knew what was in store for her. The attack on the field. Peter's bite.
Magical theory spun in my head: an Alpha's bite doesn't kill a Banshee, it wakes a Banshee up. Lydia Martin needed that trauma, that injection of raw magic and violence to break the seal on her lineage. If I stopped her from going to the field... if I saved her completely... would I be saving the girl but killing the Banshee?
It was a cruel calculation. Letting someone get hurt so they could evolve. I felt dirty just considering allowing it, but a powerless Lydia would be just a perpetual victim in Beacon Hills. With powers, she was a force of nature.
Stiles.
I squeezed the steering wheel. The collateral damage of Lydia's choice.
He was going to be alone. Abandoned at the party while she ran after Jackson—or what she thought was love. Stiles was going to be left aside, vulnerable, the fragile human amidst monsters. I needed to ensure that when shit hit the fan, he wasn't in the line of fire. Stiles was the brain of the original pack; without him, Scott would have been dead a long time ago.
And finally... Jackson.
My high-stakes bet.
In the original script, this was the night envy won. The night Jackson, drunk and frustrated, handed Scott over to the Argents on a silver platter.
But the original Jackson wasn't bleeding black. The original Jackson hadn't felt the fear of death and my hand cleansing the corruption from his body earlier today.
Will it be enough? I asked myself, seeing the school lights appear in the distance.
I had given him a new variable: fear. Fear of dying. Fear of becoming something wrong. And, perhaps, a debt of gratitude. I hoped that was enough to silence his betrayal. If he was too busy trying to protect Allison—and himself—maybe he'd forget to destroy Scott's life.
I parked the Charger in the furthest spot, away from the streetlights.
I killed the engine. Silence fell heavily inside the car.
I checked my reflection in the rearview mirror one last time. The tie was perfect. The expression was neutral. Magic Vision pulsed at the edges of my iris, ready to identify threats.
"Four pieces on the board," I murmured to the mirror. "One breaking, one evolving, one abandoned, and one corrupted."
I opened the door, and the icy night air hit me.
But I didn't get out. My hand stopped on the cold metal handle, fingers gripping until my knuckles turned white.
The echo of my mother's voice returned, not as caring advice, but as a barb.
"You think something is going to happen today, don't you?"
I closed my eyes, leaning my head back on the leather seat.
Why the hell was controlling those four pieces my responsibility?
Who signed my name on the Beacon Hills supernatural babysitter list? I didn't ask to be born with these memories. I didn't ask to know Lydia was going to scream, Jackson was going to betray, Allison was going to break. This information came for free, a "gift" from a past life that I wasn't even sure was real or just a very detailed prophetic delusion.
My mother was right. I was turning into Marcus.
I had my own problems. Real problems. A father who was basically a retired magical warlord (or not). A Magic Society that, according to him, would come after me as soon as my name leaked. A dark mage who tried to kill me in the locker room two days ago.
And, as much as I hated admitting it out loud, there was the loneliness.
That silent, surgical loneliness I was building around myself, brick by brick, every time I lied to Stiles, manipulated Jackson, or pushed Allison away with vague answers.
I looked at the lit-up school building. Muffled music vibrated the walls. Laughter. Normal teenage life.
Maybe I should start the car and leave.
Maybe I should let Scott deal with his Alpha. Let Lydia discover what it means to be a Banshee alone. Let Jackson bleed until he learns humility. Let everything explode and focus only on myself, on my survival, on my magic.
It would be easier. It would be safer. It would be... logical.
I exhaled slowly, watching the white mist of my breath dissipate in the dark.
But then the image of Allison smiling at me in the hallway came to mind. The way Stiles defended me, even while suspicious. The genuine fear in Jackson's eyes when he asked for help.
"Shit," I whispered, slamming my hand on the steering wheel.
I could be cynical. I could be strategic. But I wasn't Marcus. Not yet.
Loneliness was the price of power, but indifference... indifference was the price of the soul. And I wasn't willing to pay that.
I got out of the car, closing the door with a dry thud that sounded like a gunshot in the silent night. I locked the Charger and adjusted my jacket, feeling the weight of the grimoire on my back like an anchor.
"Just today," I promised myself, walking toward the lights. "Just this one more crisis. Then, I'm going to live my life."
It was a lie, of course. But it was the lie I needed to walk through those doors.
The music hit my chest as soon as I crossed the gym's double doors.
It wasn't just the bass from the speakers; it was the cacophony of hormones, anxiety, and teenage joy compressed into an enclosed space. To my Magic Vision, the place looked like a blurred impressionist painting. Auras mixed in shades of pink, blue, and grey, pulsing to the rhythm of generic pop music.
I took a deep breath, filtering the excess visual information, and entered.
The gym was unrecognizable, covered in cheap winter decorations that, under the dim light, actually looked elegant. But I wasn't there for the decor.
My eyes swept the perimeter, ignoring the couples on the dance floor and focusing on the corners, the shadows, the exits.
I found them near the punch table.
Stiles was nervous, pulling at the collar of his ill-fitting suit, talking a mile a minute. Lydia, beside him, looked like a perfectly sculpted ice statue. Her mana—that Banshee static I had seen in the hallway—was strangely contained today, vibrating low, like the tide receding before a tsunami.
I knew what was happening there. It was his moment. The moment he would tell her she was smart, that he really saw her.
I felt a pang of guilt. I knew that in less than an hour, she would be running to the lacrosse field, straight into Peter's jaws, looking for Jackson. And I... was I going to let it happen?
I clenched my jaw. Focus, Nathan. Priorities.
I looked to the other side, away from the dance floor. And the situation didn't look good.
Allison looked beautiful, but her posture screamed tension. She was looking around constantly, scanning for Scott, scanning for threats. Her family had trained her hunter instincts well, but not her emotional control.
And Jackson...
I walked toward them, parting the sea of students with a bit of subtle magic so people would move aside without realizing it.
Jackson was drinking. Not punch, but something from a silver flask he was clumsily hiding in his jacket. His aura was a mess. The Kanima's green mist, which I had purified earlier, was slowly returning, mixed with alcohol, creating a toxic sludge color.
He wasn't physically transforming, but he was mentally deteriorating.
"Drinking on the job, Whittemore?" I asked, appearing beside him.
Jackson jumped, nearly dropping the flask. Allison turned quickly, and the relief on her face was so obvious it almost hurt.
"Nathan!" she exclaimed, and before I could react, she hugged me.
It was a quick, desperate hug. She smelled of expensive flowers and cold gunpowder.
"Hi, Allison," I replied, releasing her gently and keeping my eyes on Jackson. "Are you okay?"
"I'm... I'm trying," she forced a smile, but her eyes went to Jackson with concern. "He's already drunk half of that in twenty minutes."
I looked at Jackson. He was sweating cold.
"It's to calm the nerves, Salt," he retorted, voice slurring, but his eyes begged me for help again. "That... thing... stopped hurting, but now I feel it itching. Under my skin."
"Keep calm," I ordered low, using a command tone infused with mana. "If you lose control here, with her parents watching the exits... you know the ending of the story."
Jackson swallowed hard and pocketed the flask.
"Where's Scott?" Allison asked, quietly, as if saying the name were a crime.
"He's coming," I guaranteed, though I hadn't seen the werewolf yet. "He's too stubborn to obey the coach."
At that exact moment, I felt a disturbance in the air. Not inside the gym, but outside. A massive, red, predatory mana signature, circling the building like a shark circling a lifeboat.
Peter.
The Alpha was here.
My skin tingled. The game had begun.
"Allison," I said, my voice growing serious. "Jackson isn't feeling very well. Do you mind if I steal you for a dance while he gets some air?"
Jackson looked at me, understanding the cue.
"Yeah... I need to go to the bathroom," he mumbled, already walking away, swaying slightly. I knew where he was going. To the woods. To where the "call" was pulling him.
"But... what about Scott?" Allison hesitated.
"Scott would prefer you were dancing with me in the middle of the crowd than standing alone in a dark corner," I extended my hand to her. "Come on. My mom said I'm grounded if I don't dance at least once."
Allison let out a surprised laugh, short and genuine.
"Your mom is scary."
"You have no idea."
She accepted my hand.
I led her to the middle of the floor. The music changed to something slower, a melancholic ballad that seemed mandatory at every high school dance. I placed a hand on her waist—respectfully distant—and she rested her hand on my shoulder.
As we swayed slowly, my eyes weren't on her. They were scanning the mezzanine, the high windows, calculating escape routes.
That was when I heard it.
A high-pitched sound, on the threshold of hearing.
Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.
I frowned slightly, turning my head toward the speakers stacked on the makeshift stage. The noise was thin, constant, and irritating, like the hum of an old TV on without a signal, but at a frequency that made my teeth vibrate.
My Magic Vision flickered for a second, picking up a slight distortion in the sound waves, but the school's sound equipment was old and had been crackling all night.
Must be feedback or a loose cable, I thought, ignoring my brain's instinctive warning to focus on the girl trembling in my arms.
I returned my attention to Allison. She was pale, brown eyes darting around the hall as if expecting an attack at any moment. Her hand on my shoulder was freezing.
"You're vibrating, Allison," I commented quietly, adjusting my step to guide her into a calmer rhythm. "And it's not from the cold."
She took a deep breath, trying to compose herself, but the air came out shaky.
"It's just... a lot. The dance. Jackson. Scott missing."
"Don't lie to me," I cut in, gently. I looked into her eyes seriously. "We're past that phase."
She hesitated, biting her lower lip. Her defense dropped.
"How do you know when I'm lying?"
"I pay attention," I replied. I turned her slowly, placing our backs to the entrance, creating a bubble of privacy in the middle of the crowd. "So, tell me the truth. How are you, now that you know?"
She froze. She didn't need to ask "know what." The tension in her shoulders told me the penny had dropped. Aunt Kate, the weird conversations, the weapons in the garage. She knew.
"About my family?" she whispered, voice choked. "About what we... what they do?"
"Hunters," I said the forbidden word, but without judgment. Just as a fact.
Allison closed her eyes for a second, as if the word physically hurt.
"I feel... torn," she confessed, opening her watery eyes again. "My whole life I thought we were normal. That we sold security equipment. And suddenly... I find out my dad is a soldier. That my aunt is a general. And that the world is full of monsters."
She squeezed my shoulder.
"And the worst part, Nate? The worst part is I look at Scott... and I'm afraid. Not of him. But for him. Because now I don't know what my father and my family are capable of doing to him."
The hum in the sound system returned.
Eeeeeeeeee.
Stronger this time. I shook my head, annoyed by the audio quality, and used a tiny pulse of mana—imperceptible to anyone—to calm her heartbeat.
"Breathe," I ordered, calm. "Allison, look at me."
She obeyed.
"You are not your father. And you are definitely not your Aunt Kate," I said firmly. "Argent blood runs in your veins, yes. It's a heavy legacy. But legacy is a tool, not a sentence."
"I don't know if I can handle it," she admitted. "I feel like I'm about to explode."
"You can. You are stronger than they think," I leaned in a little closer, lowering my voice to a secret. "The secret to not breaking is remembering who you are when no one is looking. You are the girl who is great at archery, who likes art, and who cares about her friends. That is your base. The rest? The rest is just noise."
She took a deep breath, the effect of my mana and words finally taking hold. The shaking in her hands stopped. Color returned slightly to her cheeks.
"Noise..." she repeated, letting out a long sigh. "Yeah. It's just noise."
"Exactly." I smiled faintly. "And speaking of noise, if the DJ doesn't fix that feedback soon, I'm suing the school for hearing damage."
Allison let out a weak but real laugh. The panic in her eyes receded, replaced by a new determination. She wasn't cured, but she was stable. And a stable Allison Argent was an ally, not a victim.
"Thanks, Nate," she said, sincere. "For not treating me like a little girl."
"That's because you aren't one," I replied, spinning her one more time as the music ended. "You're tough, just a bit lost and confused."
The music stopped. The eeeeeee hum ceased abruptly.
But before I could respond to her thanks, chaos erupted.
"McCall!" Coach Finstock's yell echoed through the gym.
The bubble burst. Reality returned with full force. Scott had been spotted.
"Scott?" Allison pulled away from me, concern returning instantly, but now with focus, not panic.
I looked at the side exit. Lydia was already gone.
Talk time was over.
"Go," I said, giving a light push on her back toward the commotion. "Before the Coach has an aneurysm."
Allison looked at me one last time, torn between gratitude and fear, but instinct spoke louder. She nodded and ran, cutting through the crowd like an arrow, heading straight to where Danny was trying, unsuccessfully, to hide Scott behind an awkward dance.
I saw the moment she reached them. I saw Scott's relieved smile.
I spun on my heels, abandoning the romantic comedy and focusing on the horror movie.
The side exit door was still swinging slightly, indicating where Lydia had left. Jackson must have been halfway to the woods by now, drunk on alcohol and metaphorical wolfsbane.
I started walking fast, ignoring the teachers and chaperones.
Eeeeeeeeee.
The sound returned. This time, it didn't come from the speakers. It came from inside my left ear, sharp and piercing, like an ice needle.
I stopped in the middle of the hall, bringing a hand to my temple.
My Magic Vision wavered, fuzzing like a bad transmission.
"What the hell is this?" I whispered, grinding my teeth.
I looked at the stage. The DJ was changing the track, the sound was off for a second, but the hum in my head continued. Constant. Subtle. A monitoring frequency.
It wasn't feedback. It was a signal.
Elias.
The bastard wasn't just "around." He was watching. Or worse, he was testing the interference.
"Not now," I growled at the empty air, forcing my own mana to create a static barrier around my mind, muffling the noise to a bearable hum. "I don't have time for your mind games today."
I kicked the side door open and stepped out into the night.
The contrast was brutal. The heat and noise of the gym were instantly replaced by the damp cold and oppressive silence of the lacrosse field. Low fog covered the grass, transforming the familiar setting into something out of a gothic nightmare.
Track.
I activated Level 5 Vision to the max, ignoring the headache the hum caused.
The world turned grey and geometric.
I saw Jackson's trail: a path of green, unstable slime heading toward the edge of the woods, erratic, staggering.
And I saw Lydia's trail.
It was a straight line, pale and vibrant. But there was something wrong. The Banshee "static" wasn't just on the ground; it was in the air, agitating the fog particles. She wasn't just walking; she was being called.
And at the end of that line, in the middle of the dark field, was a red stain.
Dense. Feral. Hungry.
Peter Hale.
He wasn't in giant wolf form yet. He was in human form, or something close to it, standing in the shadows of the bleachers, waiting for Little Red Riding Hood—or, in this case, the girl in the puffy dress—to come to him.
"Stiles..." I muttered, searching for my friend's aura.
I found him. A frantic point of anxiety running from the parking lot toward the field. He had realized Lydia was missing. He was going after her. Unarmed, powerless, with only sarcasm and suicidal courage.
The board was set for disaster.
If I ran in a straight line, Peter would see me. If I tried to flank, Stiles would get there first and become wolf chow.
The hum in my ear increased, almost as if it were laughing.
Eeeeeeee.
"You know what?" I said, unbuttoning my jacket for mobility and feeling the mana flow to my hands, hot and lethal. "To hell with stealth."
I didn't run.
I glided.
I used the Kinetic Impulse spell on the soles of my shoes, transforming each step into a three-meter leap. I advanced across the foggy field like a specter, cutting the distance between me and the Banshee.
I was twenty meters away. Peter was stepping out of the shadows. I had the perfect angle. A single Impact shot to the Alpha's legs would drop him before he could touch her.
I extended my hand, blue mana gathering in my palm, calculating the trajectory.
That was when the world screamed.
EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!
The hum in my ear didn't increase gradually. It exploded. It was like someone had shoved a red-hot ice pick straight into my auditory cortex.
The glide spell failed.
I stumbled, my feet losing their magical grip, and rolled on the wet grass, blinding pain making my vision flash with white static.
"Argh!" I screamed, hands flying to my ears, but the sound wasn't coming from outside. It was coming from inside.
I lifted my head, dizzy, copper taste in my mouth. My Magic Vision was distorted, geometric auras shaking like a corrupted TV signal.
And then, through the glitch in my perception, I saw him.
Far away. Across the field, near the tree line where the fog was thicker.
A solitary figure. Impeccable grey suit. Hands in pockets.
Elias.
He wasn't looking at Lydia. He wasn't looking at Peter or the desperately running Stiles.
He was looking directly at me.
Even at that distance, I saw the smile. That smug, clinical smile of someone watching a lab rat react to a painful stimulus. He raised his right hand and made a simple gesture: a slow, sarcastic "bye-bye" wave.
The eeeeeee changed pitch. It turned into a distorted electronic laugh in my head.
Something broke inside me.
The fear for Lydia, the worry for Scott, the careful strategy I had been building all night... it all evaporated. In its place, hot, dense lava surged. Hate. Pure, distilled, irrational hate.
He was there. The bastard who tried to kill me in the locker room. The mage who was playing with my life. And he was laughing.
"You..." I growled, the mana around me changing color, the calm blue of the Flux being stained by violet sparks of unstable rage.
I looked at Lydia. She was ten meters away. Peter was five. Stiles was reaching her, screaming, throwing himself in front of the Alpha.
Stiles is there, my rational mind tried to argue, a weak voice amidst the noise. He'll buy time. The original script... Peter was going to take him.
But I couldn't care about that now. I don't know if it was due to the noise, but I was feeling an irrational rage toward that mage.
Elias was turning to enter the forest. He was fleeing.
If I saved Lydia, I would lose Elias. If I lost Elias, he would come back. And next time, he wouldn't use sound. He would kill my mother. He would kill my father.
His smile burned in my retina.
"Fuck the script," I spat, blood boiling.
I spun my body violently.
Instead of launching the impact at Peter, I slammed both hands on the ground.
"Maximum Impulse!"
The grass exploded beneath me.
I didn't glide this time. I launched myself. Like a human missile, I completely ignored the screaming Banshee and the snarling Alpha at my back. I changed the vector. I changed the target.
I flew past them, a blur of speed and fury, heading straight for the edge of the woods.
I heard Stiles scream behind me:
"NATE?! WHERE ARE YOU GOING?!"
I didn't answer. I didn't look back.
The eeeee in my head pulsed in sync with my heart.
I know it's a trap, I thought, as my feet touched the soil and I sprinted into the dark trees, following the grey suit. I know he wants to lure me away.
My eyes locked on Elias's silhouette disappearing into the darkness.
But I don't care. Tonight, one of us isn't going back.