I turned my back on the spot where the mage had fallen and walked slowly toward the giant tree. I started shrugging off my leather jacket as I approached.
When I stopped in front of her and dispelled the wall of silence with a thought, I realized she hadn't obeyed my order. Lydia's green eyes were wide open, fixed on me as if I were an alien.
I opened my jacket and draped it over her pale, bare shoulders, pulling the thick leather to cover her.
The physical weight of the coat seemed to pull her back to reality. She blinked several times, her shock giving way to an automatic defense mechanism. She crossed her arms, clutching the jacket tightly against her body, and stared down at her own bare feet, which were scratched and caked in mud.
"What kind of painkillers did they give me at that hospital?" she muttered, her voice trembling but laced with an indignation that was pure Lydia Martin. She lifted her chin, staring at me with a slightly arched eyebrow, desperately trying to pretend her world hadn't just been flipped upside down. "I think I'm seeing things."
"It's the anesthesia," I replied in the same pragmatic tone, accepting her excuse. "Come on. Let's get out of here before your foot gets infected."
The forest floor was a nightmare of slick roots and slippery mud. I braced Lydia's weight against my side, guiding her through the darkness as she clung to my leather jacket like it was the only solid thing left in the world.
We walked in silence for a few minutes. The defensive sarcasm she had used in the clearing faded as her adrenaline crashed, giving way to a deep, disorienting exhaustion.
I could feel her gaze weighing heavily on the side of my face. It wasn't the superior glare of the high school queen bee, nor the mask of perfection of Lydia Martin. It was the look of someone trying to solve a puzzle that broke every rule of physics.
"How did you know?" her voice sounded faint, almost swallowed by the wind rustling through the leaves.
I kept my eyes forward, sidestepping a fallen branch.
"Knew what?"
Lydia stopped walking. The sudden pull forced me to stop as well. She turned to face me, her pale features illuminated only by the faint moonlight cutting through the canopy. Her eyes were red, and the confusion in them was raw, heartbreaking.
"How did you know I was here, Nathan?" she pressed, her voice thick, sounding much younger and more fragile than usual. "Jackson isn't here. He... he dumped me. The police couldn't find me. No one knew where I went. I... I've been seeing things. Horrible things since the night of the formal. The hospital... the nightmares... I thought I was going completely insane."
She clutched the leather of the jacket against her chest, her chin trembling uncontrollably.
"But then you showed up. In the middle of nowhere. And you did... what you did back there." She swallowed hard, her brilliant mind waging a war between the logic she knew and what she had just witnessed in the clearing. "Why you? We barely even speak at school. Why were you the only one who came to save me?"
I looked at her frightened face. Reality was crushing her. She had been abandoned by her egocentric boyfriend when she needed him most, attacked by a monster in the dark, was starting to hear the echoes of death in her own head, and, to top it all off, was nearly killed by a mercenary mage. And in the middle of this entire hellscape, where her perfectly curated life had crumbled, I was the only anchor left.
"The whole town is looking for you, Lydia," I replied, keeping my tone gentle but firm, never breaking eye contact. "Stiles and Scott are just up ahead, by the bridge. I just... decided to check the darker path."
She kept staring at me, her chest rising and falling slowly. She knew I was omitting the impossible part of it all, but in that moment, the "how" mattered far less than the "who". The untouchable Lydia Martin had just realized that when the monsters come out of the closet, the popular guys run away, and the people who actually stay are the ones you least expect.
She let out a shuddering breath, the tension in her shoulders finally yielding a fraction, and nodded slowly. A single, clean tear rolled down her dirt-smudged cheek.
"Thank you," she whispered. It was, by far, the most sincere and unguarded thing I had ever heard her say.
"Come on," I said, gently pulling her back to my side. "Let's get you out of this cold. Stiles has probably chewed off all his fingernails waiting for us."
She leaned into me again, much firmer and closer this time, trusting her own weight to me with her eyes closed. We started walking again, and it wasn't long before the darkness of the preserve began to be fractured by the frantic flashing of red and blue lights.
The moment we broke the tree line near the old iron bridge, civilization crashed over us. Cruisers blocked the road, and paramedics were already on standby near the ambulance.
Stiles was the first to spot us. He was leaning against the hood of a cruiser, pale with anxiety. When he recognized me holding up Lydia, his entire body seemed to release the breath he had been holding for hours.
"Dad!" Stiles yelled, pointing frantically in our direction. "There! They're over there!"
Sheriff Stilinski whipped around. His face, etched with exhaustion and sleepless nights, instantly softened into pure relief. Scott emerged from the shadows right behind Stiles, his nose twitching slightly as he pulled the scent of the air, searching for danger. I gave him an imperceptible nod. Problem solved.
"Bring a gurney and thermal blankets, now!" the Sheriff barked at the paramedics, breaking into a heavy run toward us. He stopped in front of us, eyes wide, stripping off his own uniform jacket out of pure instinct to offer it to her. "Lydia! My God... Are you okay? Where were you?"
Lydia stopped walking. She looked at Sheriff Stilinski, then at the police officers staring at her, and finally at the approaching gurney. She pulled my leather jacket even tighter around herself, lifted her chin with that unshakable prom-queen dignity, and sighed, profoundly annoyed.
"Does anyone have a pair of shoes?" she demanded, her voice hoarse but incredibly steady. "Or at least a coat that isn't fake leather and doesn't make me look like a mechanic? Because I'm freezing, and this humidity is terrible for my pores."
Sheriff Stilinski blinked, completely disarmed by the absurd response. He opened and closed his mouth twice before looking at me, entirely lost.
In the background, Stiles let out a nervous, strangled laugh of pure relief.
"Yeah, she's fine," Stiles muttered, wiping a hand down his face. "That's Lydia."
The paramedics wasted no time. Ignoring her complaints about the color of the thermal blanket, they eased her onto the gurney and began checking her vitals, quickly wheeling her toward the back of the ambulance.
As soon as the medical vehicle's doors partially closed and the Sheriff turned his back to coordinate the escort, Scott and Stiles made a beeline for me. Scott's relief quickly morphed into a tense expression.
"Did you find her near the old dam?" Scott whispered, narrowing his eyes. "Because she doesn't smell like anything but dirt and your cologne."
Stiles let out a long, shaky sigh. His usually restless posture crumpled. He looked at me, and all his usual irony and sarcasm were gone.
"Dude... I don't even care how you found her," Stiles said, his voice thick with a heavy, genuine relief. He gave my shoulder an awkward pat. "You found her. That's what matters. Seriously, thanks, Nathan. Really."
I gave a short nod, accepting the gratitude. Stiles's intuition would ask questions later, some other day, but for tonight, his quota for nightmares was full.
"Make sure she gets home in one piece," I told them both. "I'm dead on my feet."
Before they could answer, Sheriff Stilinski's voice rang out near the lead cruiser.
"Salt! I need you here for a minute to get on record where you found her for the report!"
"Coming, Sheriff!" I yelled back.
I turned my back on Scott and Stiles and walked toward the flashing red and blue police lights. My role as the helpful high school peer was done for the night, and they could finally breathe easy thinking the danger had passed.
[...]
I woke up to the irritating sound of my alarm clock. Monday.
My entire body protested as I threw the covers aside and sat on the edge of the bed. My magical core was perfectly calm and restored, but the physical exhaustion of trekking through the forest carrying Lydia through cold mud had left my shoulders aching.
I threw on jeans and a clean t-shirt, slung my backpack over my shoulder, and headed slowly down the stairs. The sound of my footsteps on the polished wood was soon muffled by the sizzle of frying food and the comforting aroma of fresh coffee and butter flooding the ground floor.
The kitchen felt like an entirely different universe compared to the arcane interrogation scene from the early hours of Sunday.
There were no desperate, bound mercenaries. No snobby Halloway heiresses pinned against the wall. And, above all, not a single drop of blood on the impeccably clean floor.
My mother was at the stove, flipping pancakes with the skill of someone who mastered the kitchen far better than any mage mastered the Flow. She wore jeans and a light blouse, quietly humming along to a song playing on the radio. Alice was the anchor that kept this house from turning into a wartime headquarters.
Marcus was sitting at the far end of the granite island, exactly where the mercenary's body had fallen through my portal. He was drinking his coffee from his usual black mug, reading the news on his tablet with the perfectly relaxed expression of an ordinary family man.
"Good morning, sleeping beauty," Alice said the moment I crossed the doorway, flashing that genuine smile that lit up the whole room. She pointed the spatula at me. "Sit. You slept through almost all of Sunday, which means you're running a calorie deficit."
"Morning, mom," I mumbled, pulling out a stool and sitting next to my dad. "I needed it."
Marcus didn't take his eyes off his tablet but slid a steaming mug of coffee across the counter toward me.
"Sleep well?" my dad asked, his voice deep and casual, as if he were asking about the weather.
"Out cold," I replied, grabbing the mug and savoring the heat against my hands. I cast a quick glance at the empty oak chair, then back at him. "I see the cleanup crew was efficient. Has our guest left?"
Alice set a plate overflowing with eggs, bacon, and pancakes in front of me, shaking her head in mild, good-natured disapproval.
"I already told your father to stop bringing his work home on the weekends," she commented, perfectly immune to the level of violence the word "work" implied for the Salt family. She kissed the top of my head before returning to the sink. "Messing up the whole kitchen. Lucky for him he cleaned it all up before I woke up."
Marcus let out a low chuckle, finally turning off his tablet screen and looking at me. His gaze carried that same usual intensity, but it was strangely softened by the domestic setting.
"Our guest was very... collaborative, after a while," Marcus murmured, his tone perfectly calibrated to sound like corporate jargon to my mother, but heavily laden with meaning for me. "Miss Halloway got the message and went back to her council empty-handed. As for our other problem, he was properly dispatched back to whoever hired him. But what he told me before he left... let's just say our problem is a bit bigger than a tracking spell."
I ate a piece of bacon, chewing slowly.
"Bigger as in 'headache' level, I imagine."
"The exact level," my dad agreed, taking a sip of coffee. The lethal hum of his aura flickered slightly, just enough for only me to feel it. "But that's a conversation for tonight. Eat. You have school, and I bet your werewolf friends will have a lot of questions for you today."
Alice turned off the stove, loaded her own plate with a pancake, and pulled out the stool on the opposite side of the granite island, sitting across from me and my dad. The scent of coffee and maple syrup made the atmosphere feel even cozier.
She cut a piece of her pancake, ate it slowly, and then rested her chin in her hand, shooting me that maternal look that somehow managed to be more probing than Marcus's Arcane Sight.
"So," Alice began, her tone way too casual not to be a trap. "Changing the subject a bit. Why, after all this time, haven't you found a girlfriend yet, Nathan?"
I almost choked on my bacon.
I stopped chewing and stared at her, trying to process the whiplash-inducing shift from "mercenaries and arcane problems" to "love life". Beside me, Marcus brought his black mug to his lips, but I could perfectly see the crease of amusement at the corner of his eyes. He wasn't going to help me out of this one. Traitor.
"Mom... where did you even pull that from at this hour of the morning?" I grumbled, taking a gulp of coffee to wash down the bacon.
"I'm your mother, I pull these things from wherever I want," she shot back with a light smile, not backing down. "What about that girl? Allison, the one you mentioned a while back? She seemed like a sweetheart when I saw her at the grocery store."
I let out a drawn-out sigh, poking at my scrambled eggs with my fork.
"Allison is dating Scott, Mom. And even if she weren't... her family is pretty complicated, you know." I replied, omitting the fact that "complicated" meant a bloodline of werewolf hunters armed to the teeth. "I don't have time for this right now. There's too much going on."
Alice rolled her eyes, an expression of pure, mundane impatience that dismantled any heavy atmosphere in that house. She reached across the counter and squeezed my hand lightly.
"Alright, it doesn't have to be Allison. And you don't need to date seriously, get married, and buy a dog tomorrow, Nathan. You're young." She gestured with her free hand, searching for the right words. "How do you kids say it nowadays? Hooking up? Go hook up with someone. Go make out at a party."
Beside me, Marcus let out a sound that was half a clearing of the throat, half a stifled laugh, hiding it in his coffee. I shot him a murderous glare, which he solemnly ignored.
"You need to stop focusing exclusively on this magic business with your father all the time and live a little," Alice continued, oblivious to our silent dynamic. Her tone grew a little softer, but remained firm. "You're only seventeen once. If you stay buried in those old books and training all day, you'll blink and high school will be over, and you won't have experienced anything normal."
(Author note: I saw that many people are confused about the protagonist's age, I will fix this.)
I looked from my mother, who was genuinely concerned about my lack of a social life, to my father, who mere hours ago was interrogating a magical mercenary in this very kitchen. The contrast was so absurd I couldn't help but half-smile.
"Okay, Mom. I promise I'll try to 'hook up' with someone and be a reckless teenager one of these days," I conceded, knowing it was useless to argue when she got into this mode.
Alice smiled, victorious, and went back to eating her pancake.
"You better. Now finish eating, or you'll be late."
I swallowed my last bite of pancake and pushed the empty plate toward the center of the island. The lighthearted banter about relationships dissipated into the air, making room for the real reason I was awake at this hour after a chaotic night. My mother, even without a single drop of magic in her blood, knew exactly how to read when the energy in the kitchen shifted. She stopped drying her hands on the dish towel and leaned against the sink, her eyes sharp, fully aware of and comfortable with the dark world her husband and son operated in.
"Dad," I called out, completely shifting the focus, leaning my elbows on the granite. "What do you know about Kanimas? And Banshees?"
The crease of amusement vanished from Marcus's eyes instantly. He slowly lowered his black mug, the subtle hum of his aura growing denser, almost defensive.
"Where did you hear about a Kanima, Nathan?" his voice lost every trace of casualness.
"I didn't. I'm piecing it together from what I've seen at school," I explained, running a hand down my tired face. "Jackson took the bite from Derek Hale in the woods, but his body is rejecting it. He's bleeding some dark liquid and getting aggressive in the wrong way. And Lydia... she took Peter Hale's bite. She didn't heal like a werewolf, but she didn't die either. Last night she was hearing voices, hallucinating dead people in the clearing."
On the other side of the island, Alice stopped scrubbing the pan, paying close attention.
"Magically speaking, a Kanima is an arcane vacuum," Marcus began, his voice dropping into that deep, professorial register. "When the victim's mind rejects the shapeshifter gene, their core fails to form. It collapses, creating a black hole of intent. The Kanima doesn't just seek a master out of animal instinct; it requires an external mana anchor to function. For any dark wizard with half a brain, a Kanima is the perfect weapon."
"Why?" I asked, frowning.
"Because it doesn't leave its own magical signature at the crime scene," Alice answered from the sink, her voice calm and practical. She glanced at me over her shoulder. "If it attacks on a master's order, the aura left on the victim's body is the master's, not the lizard's, right?"
Marcus pointed at my mother with a dark, proud smile.
"Exactly. It's a lethal weapon impossible to trace through conventional means. If Whittemore is turning into one, we aren't just dealing with a teenager going through an identity crisis. We're dealing with whoever picks up his arcane leash."
I absorbed the information. The show had Matt and Gerard controlling Jackson, but if a mage found out about the Kanima before they did, the fallout would be infinitely worse.
"And the Banshees?" I pressed, thinking of the strawberry blonde I had just left in the ambulance. "Why was a mercenary hired to capture Lydia right after she awakened?"
Marcus's expression darkened. He crossed his thick arms, leaning back against the counter.
"Banshees are walking rifts in the veil of reality, Nathan. They don't just hear death; their bodies resonate at the absolute frequency of the end. They are arcane tuning forks." He paused, letting the weight of the definition sink in. "A newly awakened Banshee's core is unstable, which makes it easy to mold. A cheap mercenary could make a fortune selling her on the black market. But do you know who would pay the price of an entire city to get their hands on the Martin girl?"
The answer clicked in my mind before he even finished the question. I looked down at the wooden floor, exactly where the snobby heiress had been standing hours ago.
"The Halloways."
"The sound mages," Marcus confirmed, his eyes flashing with lethal danger. "That entire bloodline's magic is based on acoustic frequency and resonance. Their Sight is auditory. Now imagine what the Halloway patriarch, the man who taught that trash Elias how to shatter minds, would do if he had a Banshee acting as an amplifier for his spells."
I felt a cold shiver run down my spine. This wasn't just about Lydia being Peter's target or the Kanima anymore.
"He would turn her scream into a weapon of mass destruction," I murmured, my analytical mind calculating the physics of the spell. "A necrotic shockwave. He could wipe Beacon Hills off the map with a single whisper from her."
"Precisely," my dad agreed, downing the rest of his coffee in one go and standing up. His presence swallowed the light in the kitchen. "The tracking spell from the mercenary you broke has probably already alerted his employer that he failed. They'll back off for now, but the Halloways aren't the only ones who covet a Banshee. The hunt for the girl has just begun."
"Which means you've just landed a full-time bodyguard gig, son," Alice concluded, drying her hands on the dish towel and walking over to me. She straightened my shirt collar, her maternal instinct blending with an impressive tactical coldness. "Keep an eye on her. If the Halloways try to get near the school, I want to know."
I nodded, adjusting the backpack on my shoulder.
"For now, they don't know any of this," I replied, a purely calculating tone taking over my voice. "The mercenary was hunting blind. I only suspect Jackson is a Kanima and Lydia is a Banshee because of the symptoms I saw. Officially, the only ones in Beacon Hills who know what they really are, are the three of us."
Marcus watched me in silence, his dark eyes gleaming with tactical interest. He knew that when I started dissecting them like this, I already had a plan mapped out.
"I'm going to weave a refraction spell around Lydia today," I continued, explaining the arcane math already spinning in my head. "I'll bend the vectors of her magical signature and muffle the frequency. Make her 'beacon' sound like ordinary static to any external Arcane Sight. That will hide her and buy us time."
My mother nodded slowly, approving the containment strategy. But her mind, always focused on the big picture, quickly jumped to the other end of the problem.
"Understood. What about Jackson?" Alice asked, crossing her arms. "If he's an empty weapon looking for an owner, what are you going to do? Kill the boy before some mage or psychopath stumbles onto him and snaps on the leash?"
I stopped. The silence in the kitchen grew thick.
Slowly, I shifted my gaze from my mother and met my father's eyes. I held the absolute weight of those combat-veteran eyes and let my own ambition bleed through, cold and unabashed.
"What if I said I want it?" I asked.
Marcus frowned fractionally. The lethal buzz of his magic crackled in the air, a mix of surprise and predatory curiosity.
"What?" he whispered.
"The control," I replied without blinking.
Alice opened her mouth to say something, but I raised my hand slightly, cutting off her objection before it could begin.
"I need allies, Dad. Scott's pack is disorganized, and the Halloways aren't going to be the only mages knocking on our door. I've already invested too much time and patience trying to keep Whittemore alive and putting up with his ego to just let my effort go to waste because he turned into a mutant lizard."
I took a step toward the granite island, my voice dropping to the same deep, absolute register as my father's.
"Having a Kanima on my side would be an absurd tactical advantage. A lethal weapon that's impossible to track via mana. And Whittemore is already used to listening to me when things go wrong. I just need to grab the leash first, get his monster in line... and then teach him how to control it himself."
Silence crashed over the kitchen once again.
My father kept staring at me for three long seconds. The pressure in the air was suffocating. And then, the corner of Marcus Salt's mouth lifted into the darkest, proudest, and most dangerous smile I had ever seen.
He didn't see a teenager playing with fire. He saw an heir taking the board.
"Then you better buy a strong leash, kid," Marcus said, his voice raspy with pure approval. "Because if that lizard steps out of line and threatens your mother, I'll rip his head off, no matter how useful he is to you."
Marcus's dangerous smile dimmed a fraction, giving way to a purely evaluative gaze. He planted both hands on the granite island, leaning slightly toward me. The weight of his aura filled the space between us, testing my conviction.
"What's your plan anyway, Nathan?" he asked, his voice dropping to a harsh, raw, and direct timber. "Are you going to grab the lizard's leash and send him to kill in your name? Are you going to become a murderous puppet master in high school?"
I held his gaze. I didn't back down, but I didn't try to inflate my ego or pretend I was invincible either.
"You said it yourself that my move against Elias would bring a lot of people after me," I replied, maintaining a calm and strictly logical tone. "I'm just gathering allies to face the magical society and the supernatural mess this town attracts. The Halloways are only the first. I can't face the entire council, the other bloodlines, the werewolves, and the hunters alone. I know my limits. I'm not you."
The confession hung in the air. It was the purest truth. I was lethal in my own element, dissecting and redirecting other people's magic, but I didn't possess the ocean of brute, destructive force that allowed my father to crush any threat head-on. I had to play chess; he threw bombs.
Marcus let out a short huff through his nose, a mix of disdain and irritation.
"So you want to team up with that trash?" he growled softly, disgust overflowing in every syllable. To Marcus Salt, teenage werewolves running around the woods were little more than mangy mutts playing tag. "What are you going to do? Join your friend Scott's pack and play supernatural boy scout for protection?"
I gripped the strap of my backpack, feeling the texture of the fabric under my fingers, and shook my head slowly.
"No," I replied, my voice steady, sharp, and ice-cold. "That's not it, Dad."
I tightened my grip on the backpack strap, holding Marcus's dark gaze. My mind was arranging the pieces on the board as I spoke, revealing the true extent of my ambition.
"Scott wants to play hero. He's driven by a moral compass that's going to get him killed one day. And Derek... Derek wants to be an intimidating king, but he's broken, paranoid, and reactive. They both draw way too much attention and have absolutely no long-term vision. If I join Scott's pack, I'll just be his magical meat shield taking the hits up front."
I took a step toward the exit but stopped, making sure my next words were absolute.
"I'm not going to be anyone's lackey in this town. And I don't want to be the target practice dummy for mages either."
Marcus slowly uncrossed his arms, the look of disgust vanishing, replaced by a genuine, lethal interest. The predator recognizing the cub finally baring its fangs.
"Then what are you going to do?" he murmured.
"I'm going to build my own barricade," I replied, my tone cold and calculating. "With my rules and my pieces. Jackson is just the first. He has power, but he lacks direction. And as for the werewolves... their pack instinct is an incredibly useful brute force, if you know how to direct the right Alpha."
My mother stopped drying the dishes. She turned to me, her eyes widening slightly at the realization.
"You want to build your own pack," Alice said, her voice barely audible.
"I want to mold one," I corrected, with a half-smile that was a terrifying copy of my father's. "I'm not going to be the Alpha, because I don't want the crown. But I am going to put someone at the top who needs me to stay there. Someone who is lost and far easier to influence than Scott or Derek."
The silence in the kitchen shifted. It was no longer tense; it was the silence of someone approving a war strategy. I didn't have a definitive name for them yet, but the image of Isaac Lahey the invisible boy, beaten by his father, desperate for protection and power was already beginning to take shape in my head as the perfect candidate. He just needed the right push at the right time.
Marcus let out a low, drawn-out laugh, shaking his head. The hum of his magic relaxed, retreating back beneath his skin.
"Manipulating the shapeshifter hierarchy straight from the shadows to create your own private faction..." Marcus whispered, drinking the last drop of coffee from his black mug. He looked at me with an absolute, dark pride. "Alright. Build your army, Nathan. But if any of your 'allies' get out of control and step on my lawn, I'll burn them all."
"I wouldn't expect anything less," I replied, untensing my shoulders and feeling the weight of his approval.
"Get to school already, evil genius," Alice cut in, tossing the dish towel onto the counter and masking her own smile with an expression of mock severity. "And make sure you focus a little on math and history too, or your supernatural army isn't going to save you from repeating the year!"
I let out a weak laugh, the tension finally evaporating, and waved to them both before walking out the kitchen door.