Witchy Woman

five

After what felt like hours, Stella finally got a call from Scott, "Boyd and Cora are out of the vault, we're near the preserve, we're gonna try to catch them."
"Cora?" She asked, trying to remember why that name sounded so familiar.
"Derek's little sister," Scott answered, hanging up. Stella looked up at Peter, who was listening to the conversation. He turned his head and walked up the stairs. Stiles and Stella went their separate ways, he got a call from his and Scott's friend Lydia, and she went to the woods to help find Boyd and Cora.
When she arrived, Stiles called her, "Lydia, uh, she found someone, someone dead."
"What? Someone's dead?"
"Yeah, like bloody, mangled, dead."
"Where?" Stella asked as she walked towards where Scott told her to meet them.
"At the public pool." He answered.
"And you're sure it was Boyd and Cora?" She questioned, arriving at the destination, earning a few glances from Isaac, Scott, and Derek, who listened in on the rest of the conversation.
"This doesn't make any sense." Derek said at the end of the phone call, "The public pool is on the other side of the woods. We haven't tracked them anywhere near there." Stella looked at Derek and could see how confused he was.
"Derek, they killed someone," Scott tells him, trying to reiterate what Stiles had said.
"How are they moving so fast?" Derek wonders out loud, ignoring Scott.
"Derek," Scott says firmly, trying to get him to listen.
"They can't be that fast on foot."
"They. Killed. Someone." Scott enunciates. "Some totally innocent kid is dead, and it's our fault."
"Scott," Stella begins, looking at her brother.
"It's my fault," Derek says. Stella looks at him, his face filled with guilt, she wants to tell him that it isn't his fault, but she knows it won't matter. Derek blames himself, nothing is going to change that.
"We need help," Scott tells Derek.
"We have Isaac now." He replies.
"I mean real help," Scott says, earning a hurt glance from Isaac and a confused one from Stella. Who else do they know that could help them? She thinks. "They're too fast for us, for all of us. They're too strong, too rabid."
"We'll catch them," Derek says, looking down at the ground, not convincing anyone.
"What happens if we do?" Isaac asks, "We're just gonna hold them down until the sun comes up?"
"Maybe it would be easier just to kill them," Derek responds. He had guilt and sadness covering his face. He looked up and met Stella's eyes.
"Killing them isn't the right thing to do and you know it,"  She tells him.
"What if it's the only thing to do? If we can't even catch them, what else do we do?" Isaac asks her.
"When I was learning how to use my magic, the coven taught me things they learned from other covens," Stella says, earning a few confused looks.
"And what's that supposed to do with catching Boyd and Cora?" Derek questions.
"We find someone who knows what they're doing, someone who knows the target, someone we can learn from," Scott replies, understanding what Stella had meant.
"Who?" Derek asks.
Stella looks at Scott, asking, "Deaton, he knows enough about werewolves. Wouldn't he know how to catch them?"
"No, we need someone who knows how to hunt werewolves." He answers. Stella looks completely confused. Why would they want to talk to a hunter? You know the person that hunts them? She thought.
They all hop into Derek's cruiser, "So you guys are like friends with this hunter?" Stella asks, finally surfacing her thoughts.
"Retired hunter." Scott corrects her. "It's Allison's dad."
"Allison?" She repeats, "The ex-girlfriend, but still friends Allison? Don't you two still have feelings for one another?" She questions, getting a couple of snickers from Isaac in the front seat.
They arrive at the store parking lot where Chris Argent, Stella learns is his name, is at. Stella, Derek, and Isaac stay in the cruiser, watching Scott approach him. Argent pulls his keys out of his jacket pocket, dropping one of the bags. As Scott approached him cautiously, he opened the trunk of his SUV and placed the bags inside. When he closed the trunk door, he pulled his gun out and turned quickly, aiming it at Scott's head.
Scott looked at the gun, then back to Argent, and then back to the gun, "Uh, hi." He said with his hands slightly up.
Back in Derek's cruiser, Stella is leaning forward with her elbows on the middle console watching the scene pan out, "Do you think this is gonna work?" She asks Derek and Isaac.
"Nope," Derek responds plainly.
Sighing, Stella says, "Me neither." She placed her hand on her head, using her thumb and pointer finger to rub her temples. She had a pounding headache ever since she went out to the woods.
"Are you okay?" Isaac asks her, looking away from Argent and Scott.
"I'm fine. It's nothing."
"So your, uh-your sister," Isaac began. Both Derek and Stella looked at him with raised eyebrows. "Sorry, yeah, it's-it's bad timing, I'm sorry. I'll uh-I'll ask later. It's fine."
"Oh my gosh," Stella said, placing her face in her hands to keep herself from laughing.
"Or um never," Isaac said, looking at Derek scared. "Yeah, yeah, I'm good with never." Silence filled the cruiser once more as they watched Argent and Scott.
Argent still had his gun pointed at Scott as they talked. After a few minutes, Argent put his gun away, but it didn't look like Scott had much luck convincing him to help them, as he started walking away from him. Scott looked around, trying to think of something to get him to help, and finally, he said something to him, which prompted them both to get into Argent's vehicle.
The trio in Derek's car watched as Scott hopped into Argent's vehicle, "Are we following them?" Isaac asks them.
"No, we go to the woods to meet Scott and Argent," Derek answered him.
"But Scott didn't even convince him to help us." He countered, knowing how the conversation went due to his hearing capability.
"He has a backup plan. He'll get him there," Stella told Isaac as Derek drove off.
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"They're on their way," Stella says, hanging up on Scott.
She glanced up at the full moon nervously, feeling the pulsing sensation of her headache getting worse, "Everything will be alright." Derek reassured her. She nodded, watching as Scott and Argent appeared through the shadows of the trees.
"Who's this?" Argent asked, looking at Stella.
"Stella, I'm Scott's older sister." She answered.
"And what are you? Are you human?" He asked her.
"No, I'm a witch."
"I've never met one, only heard stories." He told her.
"We like to keep a low profile, try not to attract attention to ourselves." She informed him.
He studied her like he was trying to see if there were any indicators of her magic. Looking away towards the rest of the group, he threw the duffel bag he was carrying on the ground and kneeled, asking them, "You're tracking them by print?"
"Trying to," Scott said, also kneeling next to him.
"Well, then, you've been wasting your time." He tells them standing up, "There's only one creature on earth that can visually track footprints, and that's man. And if you're not trained like me, you have no idea that this print is Boyd's," he points to the prints on his left, "And these-"
"Are Cora's," Isaac says, pointing to the prints on the other side of Argent.
"Nope. They're yours." Argent says while Isaac looks towards the ground around him, "You trampled over Cora's as soon as you walked over here. Listen, I know the three of you are focusing half your energy on resisting your own urges under the full moon, but that puts you at a severe disadvantage." He says as Stella looks at the Alpha and the two Betas, "Boyd and Cora have fully given in. They put the pedal to the floor where you three are barely hitting the speed limit."
"So what do we do?" Derek asks him, crossing his arms.
"Focus on your sense of smell. Actual wolves are known to track their prey by up to a hundred miles a day by scent. A trained hunter can use scent to track them. If the wind is with them, wolves can track a scent by a distance of two miles, which means we can draw them to us or into a trap." He answers, throwing a roped net at Scott, who catches it, "The full moon does give us one advantage. They'll have a higher heat signature, which makes them easier to spot with infrared." He pulled out heat vision goggles throwing them to the werewolves and witch.
Catching it, Derek told him, "Thanks, but I've got my own." And showed his eyes glowing a crimson red.
"Just remember, we're not hunting wild animals. Underneath those impulses are two intelligent human beings. Don't think they can't rely on that human side. It's suppressed, but it's there, reminding them how to mask their scent, how to cover their tracks, how to survive." Argent tells them. Walking towards the edge of the preserve that overlooks the town, he asks Derek, "When's the last time you saw your sister?"
"Nine years. I thought she died in the fire," he replies somberly.
"Do you feel like you have a lock on her scent?" Argent asks him.
He shakes his head. Scott turns to Stella, "Can't you do like a locator spell?" He asks her with a hopeful tone.
She shakes her head, "No, there's a lot of things I need that we don't have the time to get."
"Scott," Argent says, "How confident are you in your skills?"
"Honestly, most of the time, I'm trying not to think about all the things I can smell." He answers.
"Alright, the problem is when they breach the woods and hit the residential area. Once they're past the high school, they're right in the middle of Beacon Hills."
"They're not gonna kill everything they see, are they?" Isaac asked, looking at the others.
"No." Argent paused, turning around to continue, "But there is an important difference to recognize. Wolves hunt for food. At a certain point, they get full. But Boyd and Cora are hunting for the pleasure of the kill, for some primal apex predatory satisfaction that comes from the ripping of warm bodies to bloody shreds, and who knows when that need gets satiated?"
"We can't kill them," Scott says.
"What if we can't catch them?" Derek asks, looking at the young beta.
"Maybe we could just contain them? You know until the sun comes up?" Stella suggested.
Argent looking at her, realized what she meant. Since they're too rabid and the reality of catching them was wearing thin, they just needed to hold them until the full moon passed, "There's no one in the school at night, is there?"
"You want to trap them inside?" Derek questioned.
"If there's somewhere with a strong enough door, no windows or access to the outside."
"What about the boiler room?" Isaac wondered.  "It's just one big steel door."
"You're sure the school is empty?" Argent asked.
"It has to be." Scott declared. "There can't be anyone there this late, right?"
Stella winced harshly, her head was pounding, "Are you sure you're okay?" Isaac asked her again.
"I'm fine. It's just a headache." Even though her head felt like it would explode from all the pain and heat building, she continued to help.
They walked into the woods, going back to where Argent parked his SUV. He took something out of his duffel. It was steel and looked like a miniature version of a ground light. He stabbed it into the ground where he stood, "These are ultrasonic emitters. It's one of the tools we use to corral werewolves, pushing them into a direction we want them to run." He pushed the top of the emitter in, causing it to flash a white light and produce a sound that caused the werewolves to cover their ears and wince in pain. "It gives off a high pitched frequency that only they can hear."
"I think they figured that out," Stella said as she and Argent looked at the others.
Argent walked to the back of his vehicle, opening the trunk, causing the rest of the group to follow him. He opened a case that held eight emitters, handing two to each of them. He looked at Stella and told her, "You're gonna ride with me to the school, and we'll meet the others there." She nodded, knowing she wasn't going to be able to keep up with the others on foot.
"These are gonna drive them to the school?" Derek asked skeptically, looking down at the emitters in his hands.
"And then it's up to you to get them in the basement," Argent said, not answering Derek's question.
"Does anyone else want to rethink the plan where we just, uh, kill them?" Isaac asked nonchalantly.
"It's going to work." Scott said reassuringly, looking at the others, "It'll work."
Argent closed the trunk and got into the driver's side while Stella got into the passenger side, watching the werewolves run off into the night. "So how did you get your powers, Daniels?" Argent asked her driving off.
"Stella." She told him, disregarding the name he called her, "I was born with magic, but never really learned how to use it until I was 16." She looked at him while he looked at her, curiously, "You accumulate your power over time. You learn in stages and certain skills." She said, looking away from him. "How did you know my father?" she asks.
Argent rolled down his window and slowed the car, holding an emitter out of the window and dropping it, and as soon as it sunk into the ground, it turned on. "Your father told us what the Hale's were. They were friends, right? Your father and Talia?" he says, answering her.
"Yes," she said bitterly. She hated her father and how he outed the Hale's to save himself. As they got closer to the school, Stella's headache got worse. "Ow, god!" she yelled, holding her head in her hands as Argent parked the SUV.
"Are you okay?" he asked her, looking at her with genuine concern.
"Yeah, I'm fine," she said, wincing, "I've just had this headache since I got to the woods, and it's getting worse," she told him.
"Maybe you should sit this out," he suggested.
"No. No, I'm fine, really it's nothing," she said, looking at him, knowing she wasn't very convincing.
"Fine, let's put the last emitter closer to the school." Stella nodded at him, and they got out of his SUV. Argent knelt and turned the emitter on as Scott ran up to them, and Isaac ran to another part of the school. "Do you see that?" he asked them both as he rose from the ground looking in the air.
"Yeah, it's a firefly," Scott answered, looking back at him.
"No, no, I know, it-," Argent said, trailing off.
"What?" Stella asked, "Does it mean something?"
"It's just uh, very unusual. The, uh, California fireflies aren't bioluminescent," Argent answered. Scott looked at him, confused.
"They don't glow," Stella said, answering Scott's silent question, rubbing her temples trying to relieve her headache.
"Stella, are you sure you're okay?" Scott said, grabbing her elbows, "You're in a lot of pain," he says, even more concerned now. Her headache started to fade a little bit. She looked down at Scott's hands holding her and saw black veins. He let go when it began to feel like a dull ache.
"Thank you," she said, with a relieved breath. Scott nodded at her and looked back at Argent. Before he could say something, they all heard howling. Boyd and Cora were at the school. The emitters were working.
"Get in the school Stella, find Derek. Scott, you find Isaac." Argent directed.
"And what are you gonna do?" Stella asks him.
"I'll bring the SUV around to see if that'll push them more into the school," They both nodded and ran their separate ways.
Stella found Derek in a hallway facing an open door. "Think they'll come this way?" she asked him.
"That's what I'm hoping," he answered, not looking away from the doors. Suddenly, Boyd and Cora came into view. Derek took out his claws and Stella held her hand out and said, "ignis" her eyes glowed gold for a split second, and fire ignited in her palm. But instead of running at them, Boyd and Cora jumped to the roof.
"Shit," Stella said, extinguishing her fire, "they're going over the school,"
"Yeah, I can see that," Derek said with a slight scoff. Stella rolled her eyes and ran towards the doors with Derek behind her. They met the rest of the group outside the doors.
'The red doors," Argent began, "Someone has to get them open," Derek nodded and ran towards the red doors.
"Someone has to drive them inside," Scott told Argent.
"I'll go," Argent said, turning on his electric baton.
"No, I'm faster," Isaac said, running towards where Boyd and Cora were.
"I'll go with him," Stella said, chasing after him, soon regretting her decision to run after the werewolf. When she finally caught up, she saw Boyd and Cora run into the school, and Isaac shut the door, locking it. Noticing another person, she looked up to find a girl on a bus with a bow and a quiver of arrows. When the girl saw Isaac and Stella looking at her, she ran off. "Who was that?" Stella asked in between breaths.
"Allison"
"Allison Argent? Wow, glad to put a face to the name." Stella said, "Come on, they should be in the boiler room by now," she told Isaac running towards the others.
Right as she got to the stairs that led to the boiler room, she saw Derek run into the room, and Scott close the door, "What are you doing! They're gonna kill him!" She ran down the steps ignoring the pounding headache that had come back. Stella closed her eyes and put her head on the cold steel door, hearing the ripping of flesh and grunts. "Don't give up, Derek," she begins hoping he's listening, "because I still need you. I need you to live for me, okay? I did not come back after ten years to see you die." The grunts had stopped, and Stella's heart started beating faster and faster, worry seeping out of her pores.
"Scott! Stella! The sun's coming up!" Isaac yelled as he ran down the stairs towards them. Stella ran into the room with Scott and Isaac behind her. They stopped in their tracks when they saw Boyd and Cora unconscious in their human form, and Derek kneeling looking down, he gasped looking up at them. Stella ran to him and got down on her knees, grabbing his cut up face, "I listened." He said, slightly smiling at her.
"You did," she smiled at him, "thank you."
She wrapped her arms around his neck, pulling him into a hug. It took him a second but, he wrapped his arms around her too. Looking up at the boys, he told them, "take them. There's a-a teacher in the," he trailed off, "I'll take care of her."
"No, I can do that." Stella tells him, helping him to his feet.
"It's okay, I have to talk to her," Derek says, walking towards where the teacher was hiding.
"Derek," Stella firmly said, causing him to turn around and focus on her, "I can talk to her. You should go, get some rest."
"Right." He said, looking confused walking out, "Thanks,"
Stella made her way to the caged area, where she could make out the shape of a woman in a green blouse and pencil skirt. She opened the door walking towards her slowly, trying not to alarm her, they made eye contact, and Stella smiled sweetly at her. She held out her hand for her to take, "It's okay. I'm not gonna hurt you." The teacher took her hand, but something strange happened when they touched. Stella felt a jolt of energy.
She went to say something about it, but the teacher interrupted her thoughts, "Can I please go now?"
"Oh, yes, you can, sorry," Stella said, watching her walk away. Once she was gone, Stella felt her headache go away.
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Stella walked to the parking lot, seeing Argent and Scott waiting for her, watching a red car leave the lot. "Come on, Stiles says he has something to show us," Scott said, getting in Argent's SUV. Stella got in the backseat, looking at her hand and noticing the blood. She must have rubbed some off of Derek when she hugged him. She thought about the energy she felt between her and the teacher. Does she have magic?  Scott looked back at Stella in concern, her eyebrows were furrowed, and he could smell her anxiety, "what's on your mind?" he asked her.
She looked up at him and responded, "nothing, I'm just glad Boyd and Cora are okay,"
"And Derek?" he asked her with raised eyebrows.
"Yeah, and Derek," she said, rolling her eyes and looking away from his stare. She had to admit she was really worried about Derek. Maybe her feelings for the green-eyed werewolf weren't all gone and just suppressed. 
"How's your headache?" Scott asked, bringing her out of her thoughts.
"Oh, it's gone. It stopped hurting when I left the boiler room," she told him. Both of them were a bit confused. She's never had a headache like this before. When they got to the hospital, Argent told them this was the last time he would help them, that he was retired, emphasizing the retired part.
"Thank you," they both said to him. "What is it Stiles wanted?" Stella asked as they walked through the doors of the hospital.
"I'm not entirely sure. He just said to meet him down in the ME's room,"
Stella and Scott found Stiles hovering over a young woman's body. He looked like he had been crying. When they got to the table she was at, Scott looked at her and then to Stiles as he draped the sheet back over her face. "Who was she?" Stella asked softly.
"Heather, she was a, a girl I knew, a friend," Stiles answered sadly. "Look, I don't think Boyd and Cora killed anyone," he said, finally looking up at them. "But we're gonna wish they did."
"Why?" Scott asked.
"I'm not exactly sure yet," he said, looking back at the sheet covering Heather. "The other girl who was out in the woods, that you found. Emily? Eventually, they're gonna find her. She's one of them." Stella looked confused but continued to listen to Stiles, "Emily, Heather, the guy Lydia found at the pool. All three were virgins. And they're all gonna have the same three injuries. Strangled, throat slashed, head bashed in. It's called a three-fold death."
"So if these aren't random killings, then what are they?" Stella asked.
"Sacrifices. Human sacrifices.
__________________________
Stella went back to the preserve, hoping that Derek might come too. Derek lingered in the shadows of the trees, trying to think of what he would say to her. "I thought you might be here." Derek finally said, walking out past the trees towards her.
She looked back at him, "I was just thinking about the first time you brought me here."
He smiled, looking down at the ground, "Yeah, I remember. You said something about wanting a place that was quiet, and uh," he paused, not knowing if he should continue.
"A place we could get some alone time." She said, finishing his sentence. She watched his smile as he remembered the memory. He walked towards her, stopping a few feet before the rock she was sitting on, "Why'd you come?" she asked him.
"I wanted to say thank you," he said, looking at her. "For helping with Boyd and Cora, for taking care of the teacher, and for coming back."
Stella looked at him. The sunlight was hitting his face just right, making his emerald eyes a lighter green. "When Scott turned eight, I came back to see how he and my mom were doing. I also wanted to see you, see how you were doing, and what you were up to. But, my mom told me you were gone. I was so angry, my dad took away my life, but he also took you away." She stopped when he moved closer. "When you were in that room tonight, I thought you were going to die, that all that separated us was a steel door, and I couldn't go in. I can't lose you again, Derek, okay? You can't pull that hero crap on me."
He smiled at her looking away, "I'm not a hero." He told her. "A hero is a good guy, and I don't think I qualify as one."
He looked away from her turning his head. She reached out and grabbed his hand, catching his attention. He looked down at her and listened, "You didn't kill Boyd and Cora. You chose the other option. You saved them. You saved a lot of people from them." She glanced at his lips and back to his eyes, those beautiful eyes she absolutely adored. Her gaze went lower to his ripped shirt, where she spotted an open wound, "You're still healing."
"I'm fine." He assured her.
"Can I try something?" She asked him, getting up from the rock. He looked at her curiously. "Oh, calm down. I just want to try out a healing spell I learned."
"Last time I saw you do magic, you lit a tree on fire." He joked.
"I've been practicing magic for ten years. I think I can hold myself back from lighting a tree on fire." She argued.
Derek sat down on the rock, and Stella placed her hand over the wound and closed her eyes chanting, "sana," opening her eyes just in time for Derek to see her irises glow gold.
Looking down at the wound that was glowing gold and closing, he looked up at her and asked, "Was that Latin?"
"Yeah," she looked at the sun that overlooked the town, "I should probably head home,"
"I'll walk you," he said, getting up and moving to her side. They continued to talk and laugh on their way to his car, keeping close to each other, mostly for Stella to steal Derek's warmth.

A/N: thank you all so much for reading, i hope you liked this chapter <3