The Hounds of Subburbia

[bethanys_hex]

Summary: To Erica Reyes, Scott McCall is an oddity. She leads Boyd and Isaac on a mission to get closer to Scott, and in doing so the pack learn some things they didn't expect about their fellow werewolf.
Words: 8,253
Rating: PG-13
Genre: Teen Wolf

~

Erica dabbed at her make up, using a large shard of mirror glass she’d found in the warehouse to touch up. Isaac, acting like a lanky ink stain, moved out of the shadow of the subway car and came up behind her.

“You missed,” he teased, pointing at a smear of mascara on her cheek. Erica gave him a sharp look in the glass that sent him ducking back to slouch on an old crate. Then Erica turned back to the broken mirror and tried to wipe the black smudge off her face.

Girls at school always made this look easy, but Erica was discovering it took effort. As often as she’d wanted to try it, she’d never had anyone teach her how to apply lipstick, or eyeshadow, and her meds and symptoms made it seem like a waste of effort before. Derek did her eyes the first day, claiming he knew something from his sister, but Erica was mostly figuring it out herself.

She decided she liked the dark punk look. She’d never be a cute little Ms. Macy, with star studded bags and a Gucci purse. She had too much blood and iron in her soul to feel like anything but a dressed up doll. No, she needed something harsh and she liked the leather, black eye liner, and faux corsets that were just this side in indecent. She was even considering a tattoo.

She ran a finger round the bottom of her lip, picking up a stray smear of lipstick. She had never indulged herself like this before. She’d never shaved her legs and lathered them in lotion. She'd never scented her hair. She'd never clipped her nails, (rather she chewed them in nervous bursts, as her pills took effect). She’d never treated her body like it was something she loved, because she never had.

The world was getting to see a whole new side of poor Erica Reyes. Everyone thought she must have been such a nice girl, as if having epilepsy was a prerequisite to being sweet natured. She hadn't been, but no one knew that, and she'd been too wrapped up in her own pain to tell them. If she had, they would have known that underneath the sores and frail shaking fingers was a girl who'd been angry and mute for a long time.

Not anymore.

She gave herself a long look in the cracked mirror before turning to Isaac with a grin.

“What do you think?” she asked.

He smiled wickedly. He had no other way. “You look hot,” he answered, letting his eyes linger in all the right places, just the way she liked.

“Course I do,” she smirked and ran a hand down her side, savoring the feel of healthy muscle the way you would a good piece of chocolate. She used to watch other girls strut through the halls in heels and short skirts, their movements easy and smooth, and envy them. It was amazing how much one bite could change.

Isaac hummed and leaned his head back. “You know my dad used to say there were only two types of people in the world, winners and losers.”

“This the same dad who beat you?” Boyd's voice suddenly rumbled from the corner where he sat bent over a large book.

“Yes,” Isaac snapped, “but he had a point, and now we’re the winners. The predators.”

“Predators,” Erica sighed. “I like it.”

She slipped Isaac a lecherous wink and grinned. Isaac was so fun. He was her go-to guy now, and in her mind he would always be the boy who looked up when she first came into the warehouse (in a baggy sweat-shirt and track pants) and looked at her like she was the best thing he’d ever seen. Erica had loved him instantly for it. In Isaac’s eyes she felt admired, adored, desirable and beautiful for the first time in her life. It was amazing and addicting. She couldn’t get enough of it and decided she wanted everyone in school to do the same.

Isaac was her first kiss. She'd asked to practice on him before school because she wanted to know how to kiss a boy, now that she could have one. He'd smirked like his birthday came early, and they experimented until they both figured out how to avoid nose bumps, and use their tongue. They were hardly boyfriend, girlfriend. Erica wasn’t going to tie herself down to anyone, and Isaac wasn’t interested in that either. He wanted something better, a friend.

Isaac had told her the day they met that he hadn’t had a friend in a long time. Ever since his brother died he’d been trapped, alone with a monster. Whenever he tried to reach out and ask for help, his dad stopped him and made him regret it. Eventually Isaac stopped trying, and lived in a world of glass. Erica had lived in glass too. Only her prison had been made by hospital walls, pills, and her own body. They'd all been lonely. Even Boyd who was big and quiet and odd.

“It’s weird isn’t it, how similar we all were,” she murmured. “But we never even spoke before Derek.”

“Maybe if we did...” Isaac started and Erica cut him off.

“What? Do you really think it would have made any difference?”

“It would have to me,” Boyd mumbled from his corner.

“Right,” Erica sneered, “the loner, loser and basket case, what a great union. Instead of getting spit on by ourselves we could take it as a group.”

“Might have been nice,” Boyd said with a shrug, as if he’d missed all the sarcasm.

“No thanks.” Erica twirled her freshly curled hair. “I’d rather take it now, when I can rip their faces off afterward.”

“Maybe that’s why Derek came for us,” Boyd mused and Erica blinked. That was Boyd for you. He almost never spoke but when he did, he said the weirdest things.

“What, because we were miserable?” she asked.

“Because he knew we’d say yes,” Boyd answered. “If you had the power to change anyone, who would you pick?”

Erica shared a look with Isaac.

“Someone who needed it,” Isaac answered with conviction. Erica could almost feel him thinking about his family, and she was thrown back to the hospital, remembering her own bite.

A creepy man, dressed in black had stolen her gurney and wheeled her into the morgue where no one could hear her scream. She was too shaky, and in too much pain to run away. So she waited, silent and terrified, wondering if the stranger was about to murder her, and if dying would really be so bad.

Instead he offered her the one thing she desperately wanted; a cure. It sounded like one of the radical treatments her mother was pushing for, and mutinously Erica had thought “how is the bite of a werewolf any worse then a chest implant, or lobotomy.” The bite had a sixty, forty chance of survival, but if she lived she’d be unstoppable. Then in the next breath he made it even sweeter and told her she’d have two new brothers. One was waiting for her back in town. The other she’d find at school. His name was Scott McCall. In fact, he was the whole reason Derek came looking for her.

The irony almost made Erica throw up. She couldn’t count of how often she’d seen McCall while peering through bookcases as a freshman, crushing on Stiles. Scott was the quiet one she’d designated as “Stiles’ Friend.” He’d had an inhaler then, and they used to both sit on the sidelines in Gym, watching the rest of the school make fun of them for failing out. If she thought hard enough she could even remember seeing him in the pediatric ward hooked up to a drip, and oxygen mask.

Getting the bite must have been as life changing for him as it was for her. She'd told him about the video of her seizure because she figured, he’d understand, even if he didn’t want to.

“Scott was like us before, you know,” she said, absently.

“Yeah, right.” Isaac snorted and shook his head. Erica gave him the evil eye for doubting her word and Isaac stared back.

“He must be a little like us,” Boyd offered, breaking up the staring match. “I mean, he’s part of the pack right?”

“He doesn’t act like it,” Isaac insisted.

“And how is a pack supposed to act?” Boyd challenged.

Silence reigned as they all looked at each other. None of them knew how this was meant to work. Not really. Erica treated it like a club, where they met at the warehouse after school and did werewolf things. It was the closest she’d ever come to Girl Scouts, and she considered each new shade of lipstick as a merit patch. Red for surviving the bite, pink for controlling her shift, and so on. Derek was like a scout master, but he’d never laid down any rules for them. It was just “you’re a pack now, figure it out.”

Erica didn’t see why it mattered anyway.

“Whatever this is supposed to be, we’re not it,” she said. The boys looked at her, and she flipped her hair in a irritated wave. “Come on, if werewolves were some underground society don’t you think we’d have heard of them by now. We’re on our own. We are it, and we can do whatever we want.”

“You mean Derek can,” Isaac tagged on.

“Fine,” Erica conceded, “Derek makes the rules, but he still wants Scott around,” she finished. As far as she was concerned that was the end of it. Derek said Scott was one of them, so Erica wanted him.

“Why?” Isaac sneered. “He's a joke. He was given this and all he does is throw it back in Derek's face.”

“Maybe he doesn't like the way Derek does things,” Boyd supplied, turning a page in his book.

“I don't like everything he does either,” Isaac said, “but if Scott doesn’t want be in the pack, then I say let him. It’s not like we need the guy.”

Erica thought Isaac sounded a little too put out. She wasn’t sure if it was because he felt rejected, or threatened by the idea of Scott. He did have a point though. Scott wasn’t part of their group in anything but name, and that name hung in the air like the inconvenient relative nobody wanted to talk about. A space was always left for him, but he was never there to fill it. Erica was used to it being just the three of them, but she knew the longer this thing was drawn out the worse it would be.

“I don’t think Derek’s just gonna give up him. Maybe we should get it over with.” Because frankly, she was getting pissed off at being ignored. Scott was one of them. She just had to get him to admit it.

“How?” Isaac asked, suspiciously.

“We show him what he’s missing.” Erica smiled viciously. “If he won’t come to us, than we’ll go to him.”
 

~
 

They began their campaign, which Erica privately called “The Seduction of Scott McCall,” at school the next day. Erica swept in with Isaac at one shoulder and Boyd at the other. A wake of glazed looks followed them down the hall and a few whispers suggested they’d joined a gang. Boyd sighed, while Erica shared a conspiring grin with Isaac and smiled, inhaling the smell of lust like a good steak dinner. Mmm, meat. She eyed a Lacrosse team mid-fielder, and licked her lips.

It was amazing how much sex mattered. With it she had the power to humiliate and break hearts and get voted ‘most likely to’. No one was laughing at her anymore, and if she wanted, she could chew them up and spit them out. She wouldn’t bother with most of them though. There were only three boys that mattered to her, four if she included Derek. The one she was interested in today was standing by his locker just down the hall. Erica gave Isaac a tug on his hand, pointing Scott out to him.

Isaac nodded. “When do you wanna start?”

Erica saw Scott perk up and looked over at them. Good, he was listening. She locked eyes with him and then leaned into Isaac’s ear, whispering, “Any time. Just do what you do best. You got the stuff for Gym?”

Isaac nodded and slipped a warm hand up the back of her shirt. She hummed, satisfied and arched into his hip. Boyd remained at their side like a bodyguard. Though whether he was protecting them from others, or the other way around, Erica wasn’t sure. Scott was looking very suspicious now, and she blew him a kiss from across the hall as the bell rang.

The pack had to break up for classes, and Erica sauntered off to Civics alone, thinking of all the ways she could get to Scott just by being near him. Ten minutes into her class Greenberg distracted her by trying to cop a feel under the desks. She stiffened when she felt his hand on her ass, then calmly reached down, took his palm and bent his fingers backward. She was tempted to break them, but Derek had told them not to draw attention and having a guy screaming on the floor with a mangled hand was probably worthy of attention. She let him suffer for another minute, savoring the crunch of protesting bone and the whine of pain as Greenberg squirmed and bit his lip. Then she released his hand and winked over her shoulder when he cringed back, trying to hide in his jacket.

After civics she cut across the school to see the AP math class let out. Isaac left first looking very pleased with himself and swaggered down the hall. The rest followed and Scott came out with Lydia Martin looking freaked. Erica covered her mouth, trying not to laugh. He was so cute when he had that baffled expression. She’d have to ask Isaac what he pulled in math later. Scott heard her though, and spun around. She waved and settled a text book on her thrust out hip.

He instantly came over and demanded, “What are you up to?”

She teased him with a smile. “Oh we’re just having fun Scott, what about you?”

“I’m serious. Is Derek making you go after someone else?”

“You know, not everything is Derek’s idea,” Erica shot back. “Maybe we’re doing this is for you.”

“What’s that supposed to mean,” Scott asked warily.

“You’ll find out.” Erica swept by and landed a kiss on his cheek before he could duck away.

The whole morning was spent teasing Scott, and the change was dramatic for all of them. Erica decided school was much more fun this way, even with douchbags like Greenberg. While they hadn’t actively avoided Scott before, they’d never sought him out. They’d stayed in their own space and left him to his, but today they showed him how close they could be if they wanted. In the halls they made a point to pass him and brush shoulders. Isaac took to looming over Scott and Stiles, because the two were never apart, and making sarcastic remarks. Erica left cheery notes in his locker, and Boyd stayed on the fringe of the whole thing, hiding in an embarrassed silence like Eeyor under his raincloud. Scott was practically twitching by fourth period.

All in all the day was going well, and Erica had almost forgotten her own troubles. At least until she was stripping down in the girls locker room for Gym. Then her bubble burst. Sometimes her new senses still kicked in at awkward moments and she had just tossed her shirt aside when her hearing spiked and she heard her name from down the row. Without thinking, she tuned in and got an ear full of the only station in school; gossip.

“She’s such a slut.”

“Yeah, it’s like she got a makeover and now all she does is throw herself at boys.”

Erica went rigid. A hot, stupefied anger raced down her spine as the girls continued.

“I heard she took Greenberg down in Civics and tongued him in front of the whole class.”

“Do you think she gets paid per blow-job?”

“She’s just trying to get back at people, it’s so immature.”

Erica followed the piping voices around the corner until she saw them together, throwing out “whore,” “bitch” and a few other choice slurs. It wasn’t the first time she’d heard it. The name-calling had been constant since her transformation, but her vision still turned red with the urge to grind them up in her teeth. Her fangs popped out and she sliced her palm open to keep from losing it in the locker room. There’s just no winning, she thought. Either they hate you because you’re a freak, or they want you and despise you for it.

When she was more or less under control she stormed up to the pair, and before they could choke out an excuse she’d grabbed one by the neck and slammed her into the lockers, lifting her up one handed. The second girl shrieked and they both stared with wide eyes as Erica towered over them in her bra. She licked her lips, enjoying the fear rolling off her prey, and leaned in, whispering like a lover.

“Nothing to say now? If you’re going to call me a slut and pretend that makes you moral at least have the guts to do it to my face.”

“Erica!” A sharp, familiar voice called. Erica spun her head to see Allison Argent standing at the end of the locker row. She looked rigid and the bitter tinge of fear and determination battled with the soft smell of compassion underneath her flowery shampoo. Erica hated it and snarled. The two of them usually avoided each other, staying on opposite ends of the girls room by unspoken agreement.

“What?” Erica hissed, and Allison took a fortifying breath.

“I need to talk to you.”

Erica didn't move, suspicious that this was going to be some bull-shit excuse to drag her away from her prey. She flexed her hand on the gossip’s throat and Allison zeroed in on it.

“Please,” she added faintly. Erica relented with a sigh and released her quarry, shoving the girl into the lockers once more for good measure. Allison retreated around the corner and Erica followed until they were well out of ear shot of the other girls. Or at least, Allison was. Erica could still hear them trashing her, if she wanted to. She leaned against a wall and thrust her hips out in a careless arc, while Allison stood stiffly just out of claws’ reach.

“You wanted something?” Erica prompted.

“Just for you stop,” Allison said, and Erica raised an eyebrow. That was more honest then she expected. Of course Allison ruined it in the next moment by adding, “You're not going to make any friends that way.” As if she needed an excuse to soften the blow. Erica snorted.

“Friends? That's rich coming from you.”

“I know a little about making friends Erica, I've moved twenty six times. I just think--”

“You think I'm a bitch,” Erica cut her off, saving them both her opinion. “Because I’m a werewolf, and because I suddenly got hot and have the nerve to like it.”

“No, I think you’re a bitch because you’re cruel and you tried to get into my boyfriend’s pants,” Allison snapped, then closed her mouth, looking surprised at herself and a little embarrassed. Well, well, this could actually be fun, Erica thought. She liked a bit of spine. She pulled herself off the wall with a teasing smile.

“Oh, but you and Scott broke up, didn’t you?” she offered in a sickly sweet voice. “That’s what you’ve told everyone. He’s free game.”

“You’re not everyone, you know we haven’t broken up.”

“Maybe you should,” Erica replied and Allison stiffened. Erica rolled her eyes. “Oh come on, it’s not like you’re gonna last. You guys wanna see it through to the nasty end, that’s your business, but I don’t see a reason not to flirt in the meantime.”

Allison’s breath hitched. Then she raised her chin and replied calmly, “I meant what I said in Chem. You can’t hurt me by using him.”

“God, you and Lydia really make a great team, you’re so full of yourselves.” Erica leaned in and hissed. “You wanna know something funny? I actually like Scott, and one day I’m gonna be all over him, all the time. It isn’t about you, it isn’t even really about the boys. I just love sex. I guess that does make me a slut, but you know, I’m good with that. This school needs a new bitch to hate.”

She spit out the last word and stormed away to retrieve her gym shirt. It was such a stupid double standard. Boys could be obsessed with sex and people were fine with it. Aggressive men were admired in the movies, television, magazines, everywhere. Not her, she could enjoy herself in private but god forbid she do so in public. Good girls were supposed to be above sex, and if they weren’t then the only possible explanation was they were using it to play mind games. Not because they actually wanted it.

Well screw that. Erica used to shy from touch when she was easily hurt, but now it felt positively divine. She was hungry for every type of sensation she could get, and that new vibrator was the best thing she’d ever bought. She imagined that finally doing it with someone would feel ten times as good.

Angry, she shoved her school clothes into a locker, covering her radical feminism books and cherry chapstick. She didn’t need girl friends anyway. She had Isaac and Boyd. They were enough. Sure, she might wish for better conversation, or that she didn’t make them nervous because she had an x chromosone, but it was better than hanging on, hoping for that mythical soul sister to fall in her lap. Erica Reyes didn’t need to swap girl talk, or exchange traveling pants. She was fine on her own, and had better things to do anyway, like reeling in her Omega. She marched out of the locker room, hair flaring in her wake, and told herself she wasn’t hurt at all.

The gym was half full when Erica made her entrance. Teams were getting picked and sent to either side of a line while huge nets of balls lay on the floor. Dodgeball, perfect.

Erica ran a tongue over her teeth, the smell of victory already in the air. This was what she needed. She used to dread dodgeball as much as the climbing wall. Gym was a crucible she’d never overcome as an epilectic, and she’d tried, oh how she tried. Erica had always wanted to be active. She’d dreamed of running marathons, climbing mountains, and dancing. She pushed herself everyday, but her body just couldn’t do it and every time she failed she had to watch her dreams pass by, leaving her bitter and disappointed. Scott had to feel the same way.

She scanned the crowd, picking out her Omega from where he stood shoulder to shoulder with Stiles. Allison came out of the Locker room with Lydia and they both settled on Scott’s side of the line. He seemed to catch something in the air because he glanced at Erica and Allison, then gave his non-girlfriend a questioning look. Allison shook her head and he let it go. Isaac and Boyd joined Erica and the three of them stared down McCall.

“Time to play with us,” she mouthed and he looked back, bewildered but very determined.

Coach Finstock blew his whistle. “All right numbskulls, you know the drill. Get hit and you’re benched, don’t get hit and you win.” He hummed the last word with relish.

God she hated that guy, she wished their regular gym teacher would come back. Erica sneered and passed Isaac her iPod, which he dutifully stuck into the nest of speakers he’d stolen from the media class and set up on the bleachers. They all took their positions and Erica snatched up a ball, bending over her knees and baring her teeth at the other team. The rabid strumming of an electric keyboard filled the gym as the first ball sailed across the line. Soon balls were flying to sound of Emily Osmet blasting from the speakers.

Hey, what's your name?
I think I like you, come a little closer now,
Wait what you say, is that your girlfriend,
Think I'll be turning that around

Stiles went down first, taking a ball to the head from Erica. Other players followed as Isaac hurled ball after ball at Jackson and the asshole dodged left and right. Kids dropped like flies as Erica’s pack hurled balls at Scott’s team of do-gooders, and they fired back. Erica felt the joyous thrill of a fight rise with the music.

Let's be friends so we can make out,
You’re so hot, let me show you around,
I see what I want and I wanna play,
Everyone knows I'm getting my way,
it doesn't matter what you say,

By now almost everyone was benched, except for Scott, Allison, Jackson, and Danny. Erica and her boys where the only players standing on their team, the last kid having been taken out by friendly fire when he lobbed a ball at Scott and got hit for it by Isaac. That was when it really got brutal. Their reflexes which had been held mostly in check were given free reign and they pounded each other. Or rather, Scott’s team fired at them, while the pack aimed at everybody but Scott.

I'm knocking you down, down down,
I'm knocking you down, down, down.

Finally it was just the four of them, Scott all by his lonesome on the other side of the line. He gulped, and Erica heard it easily. Her blood was warm, her body excited and loose, and she could feel a grin splitting her face. For once it was without malice, or cynicism, or double motives. She was just happy be alive.

Scott looked like he expected to get hit by a barrage, and they didn’t disappoint. Isaac hefted a ball and as one they all threw their ammo. Scott became a blur on the gym floor, dodging ball after ball until he ended up crouched on the ground as the last one bounced away. His eyes flared gold and he growled. Then he charged over the line and rammed head first into Boyd, who fell back with Scott on top of him.

They slammed down with a crack on the wood floor and Erica couldn’t contained herself. She laughed and snatched up a ball, hitting Scott in the back. He grunted and looked over with a glare as Boyd held onto him, trying to keep Scott from shifting. Erica was feeling very smug for half a second before she felt the smack of a ball on her own back, and turned to see Isaac standing behind her. She yelped in betrayal and leaped onto Isaac as he backed away, taking him down and pummeling him the balls near at hand. He covered his head and they rolled over into Boyd and Scott.

Isaac ended up heaving on top of her, while Scott twisted above Boyd and they all gave off heat like an oven. She wanted to ravish them all right now, in the middle of Gym. That should be a lot better then some empty rumor about Greenberg. Besides, Scott was one of hers, or should be. So what if other girls were happy with just one. Even if she believed in monogamy, which Erica wasn’t sure she did, she was three times as sexy as other girls. Of course she deserved three boys.

“How can you not love this?” she asked Scott, breathing heavily as she dropped the taunting. Scott looked down at them, mouth open like he was about to reply. Then the sharp peel of a whistle sliced across the gym, and they all flinched. Scott brought a hand up to his ear and the Coach’s grating voice killed their moment.

“All right, break it up. Save the make out session for a private basement with pot and sex toys. Boyd!”

“Yes coach?” Boyd said softly, getting up and setting Scott on his feet.

“You won, congrats, never caught a ball, but due to getting hit by McCall here you’ll be missing the usual prize of a chocolate covered jelly bean rabbit. Left over from last Easter.”

“Thanks, Coach,” Boyd nodded.

“That’s not a reward,” the Coach snapped and then turned on the mob of silent students watching the byplay. “Gym’s over, go change, and if I catch anyone not showering--Greenberg!--I’ll make you wish you were still in diapers.”

He blew his whistle again and Gym broke up. Scott slipped away in the crowd and Erica, still flushed from the game caught Isaac’s eye where he was fingering his ear and wincing.

“Next plan after this is stealing that whistle and melting it down,” he growled.

“Agreed.” Erica bared her teeth, and Boyd nodded solemnly as they left the gym.

~
 

Erica had to rush through her post-gym routine, since she wanted to spend as little time in the locker room as possible. Everyone was talking about the display they'd made in dodgeball, and Erica couldn't get away from the other girls fast enough. She hooked up with her pack just outside the cafeteria for lunch, and entered, inhaling the crush of smells that washed away the lingering taste of jealousy from the locker room. Mystery meat, potatoes, salad and candy mixed with the sweat and perfume of a hundred students in one big messy stench. Erica marched in and enjoyed the ogling of the crowd. She even had some girls checking out her assets, and Erica mentally added 'lesbian kissing' to her list of things to do in life, right under 'try Ecstasy' and 'go sky diving.'

Lunch was the time of day when Erica really felt her brush with popularity. Whatever table she picked became the center of attention, as the hopeful masses sidled up to her, like rats trailing the Pied Piper of Hamlen. She always kept the boys with her, and the long empty table Boyd used to sit at alone every day became as busy as a drive through. Today was different, though; today they would be sitting with Scott.

She spotted her Omega just as he got out of the lunch line, trailing behind Stiles. Their heads were close together as they talked in low urgent tones, more conspicuous then a pair of spies at a duck pond. Erica rolled her eyes and slapped Isaac on the arm, grabbing his attention as he stole a sandwich from the end of the lunch line and stuck it in his pocket.

“What?” he snapped.

“I found our table.” Erica nodded towards Scott and Stiles, and started off with Isaac right behind her. Boyd hesitated in the doorway, then followed.

As they closed in, the hubbub of the cafeteria gave way and Stiles voice filtered through, saying “It's gotta be a trick or something, like a scheme to get you into the pack.”

“By playing dodgeball?” Scott sounded sceptical.

“Well I didn't say it was good scheme. Clearly they’re not competing for villain of the year. Look we'll just try to ignore them.”

“How?”

“We can... hide!” Stiles gasped, looking over his friend’s shoulder.

“Hide where?” Scott frowned.

“No, hide. Hide right now, they’re here!” Stiles hissed and then did a dramatic dive beneath the table as Erica slapped her hands on their table. Scott jumped in his chair and tried to look like he wasn’t kicking his friend under the seats.

“Hi, Scotty,” she purred and sat on his right, sliding her foot around his ankle and locking their legs together. Isaac dropped onto Scott’s other side before he could pull away and Boyd took the seat across the table, beside Stiles’s empty chair. Erica tossed Boyd her lunch bag and he began the now familiar practice of dividing up her lunch and adding his own until they had three even pieces. Isaac brought nothing to the table, but then, he never did. Erica and Boyd never mentioned it.

“Umm, hi, Erica, Isaac, Boyd,” Scott looked at them and shifted in his seat. “You know if you guys want the table, Stiles and I actually have somewhere to be, so...” He started picking up his lunch tray and Isaac threw an arm around his shoulders, yanking him down.

“Nah, stick around. We’ll get to know each other,” Isaac leered, the offer coming out like a threat.

“That sounds painful,” Stiles commented, climbing back into his seat again. Isaac kicked him and Stiles squawked “foul!”

“What are you working on?” Boyd asked Scott, trying to ignore the other two, and taking a friendly approach by nodding at Scott’s limp pile of books.

“Umm, History?” Scott answered distracted as he tried to shrug Isaac’s arm off. It didn’t move.

Boyd passed Erica and Isaac their lunches, then reached over and snagged Scott’s notebook. “You need help? I’m good with History.”

“You are?” Stiles piped up, and Erica enjoyed the irked look Boyd sent the other boy.

“Yeah, that surprise you?” he challenged and Stiles caught up with himself, wincing.

“There’s no way I can answer that without being insulting, is there?”

They all shook their heads, even Scott.

“Sorry, dude,” Stiles sighed. “I’ll just be over here, eating and trying to forget this incredibly awkward lunch moment we’re all having.”

“You can leave,” Isaac suggested, showing his teeth.

“Well, considering you’ve got my best friend in a semi-erotic neck hold, that’s unlikely.”

Isaac and Stiles began launching acerbic commentary across the table like missiles, and Erica tuned them out. She focused on Scott, who was looking off to the side with a ‘help me’ expression that was just adorable. She followed his gaze and saw Allison watching them from Lydia Martin’s empty table, a funny role reversal if there ever was one.

A few months ago none of them could have gotten a seat at Lydia’s table if they paid her. Now she was the town’s nudist whack-job and her only lunch date was the girl with a serial killing aunt. Both of them were social pariahs, while Erica, who had once been voted the ugliest girl in school by secret ballot, was ruling the cool table. Irony.

“Think she’s jealous yet?” Erica whispered in Scott’s ear, pitching her voice so low only the werewolves could hear her, making a private moment for the four of them that cut out the rest of humanity, even with Stiles flailing right besides them.

Scott didn't look away from his girlfriend, but shook his head with a proud little smile. “Allison doesn't get jealous.”

“She should,” Erica replied, dropping her chin on his shoulder. “The only reason she's not is because she thinks you're not worth getting jealous over, ‘cause no one else would ever want you.”

“Allison’s not like that,” Scott replied with such baffled surety, Erica actually felt sorry for him.

“Aw, Scott, everybody’s like that,” she said, thinking of her mom, and the girls at school. The prognosis on humanity was shit, frankly. If Allison was a werewolf, there might be a point to Scott’s mooning. “We could turn her you know,” she chatted idly and felt Scott tense under her chin. “I wonder what her family would do if she became one of us. Derek says they'd kill her. I don’t know. Or maybe we could get Stiles bitten.”

“Shut up!” Scott suddenly yelled, slamming a palm on his lunch tray and making it rattle. Erica frowned at him, then sniffed. Underneath the tension, anger and usual boy musk was a hint of fear. She’d scared him. Boyd went still while Isaac cocked his head, curious, and Erica leaned back like she'd been slapped. That wasn't part of the plan. They weren't supposed to scare Scott, and she'd been bullshitting anyway, couldn't he tell?

“Relax, it was a joke,” she said, loud enough for Stiles to hear.

“Well it's not funny! You can't just go around and attack whoever you want,” he insisted.

“Oh come on, it's not like that actually happens.” She rolled her eyes.

“It happened to me.”

“... what?”

“Nothing.” Scott shook his head.

“No, what do you mean that happened to you,” Isaac demanded as Erica and Boyd jumped in.

“Did you get attacked? Was it the hunters?”

“They’d aim for us next.”

“We should tell Derek.”

Scott interrupted them all, frustrated. “I’m not telling Derek anything, and that’s not even what I was talking about.”

“Then what?” Erica goaded, getting frustrated at the circular conversation. Scott smelled conflicted, and didn’t answer.

Eventually Stiles answered for him. “He’s talking about his bite.”

“Stiles,” Scott hissed and kicked him again under the table again.

“Ow! Okay seriously, can we stop hitting Stiles.”

“Maybe if you shut up, and stop talking in the third person,” Boyd replied and leaned forward, resting his elbows on the table. “What happened?” he addressed Scott.

Scott shrugged, but his spine was tense as he explained. “Stiles and I were out in the woods, we got separated and then this big wolf ran me down and bit me. That’s it.” He toyed with his food. “I never even saw it coming.”

“What about The Talk?”

“What talk?” Scott looked bewildered.

“The, ‘everything you need to know about being a werewolf talk’ that Derek gives,” Isaac supplied

“Yeah, never got that.” Scott snorted, rolling his eyes.

“So Derek just... bit you?” Erica grimaced, feeling weird and violated at the thought.

“No. It was someone else.” Scott stabbed his mashed potatoes.

“Were they rabid or something?” Isaac asked, raising a cruel eyebrow.

“Or something. I thought you all knew about this, Derek said he told you guys everything.” Scott leaned forward with an accusing whisper. They all had their heads together now, like a team in a pre-game huddle.

“Well, he told us about the bite, and that there’d be a price,” Boyd offered. “The hunters, the full moon. He also said we’d be a pack, and you were already in it, sort of.”

“Well I’m not, and I’m not joining either.”

“What was it like,” Isaac asked “After you were bit?”

Erica felt the stress burning through Scott under her hand, and at Isaac's words it burst like a gum-bubble that’d been stretched too tight.

“I can’t talk about this anymore. I gotta go,” Scott stood up, and shoved Isaac and Erica off with force, then grabbed his back pack and fled the cafeteria, ignoring the half-eaten lunch waiting on his tray.

“What was that?” Erica asked the table.

The boys all shrugged and Stiles just said, “It was hard for him.”

Erica turned on him with demanding eyes and he gulped, then continued. “He had no idea what was happening. At first we thought it was just an animal attack. That was pretty scary but still normal, you know. When we met Derek, everything changed. I mean, you don’t blame an animal for an attack like that, we don't even have the same laws for it, but a person is different. They knew exactly what they were doing when they bit him.”

Stiles angrily smashed his soda can, or tried to, as if imagining it was Scott’s attacker. He gave up when the can remained unbent, and glared at it in betrayal. Erica almost offered to smash it for him, but figured that would hurt his manly pride. Stiles picked up his lunch, then Scott's, and left the table in silence. There was a split second where Erica looked at her pack, making sure they were all on the same page. Then they all scrambled up, grabbed their food, and hurried from the lunch room.

They didn't follow Stiles. Erica was sure he was going after Scott and sneaking up on another werewolf was damn near impossible. As she had learned from all the painful afternoons trying to catch Derek off guard in the train depot. He heard them breathing before they ever got close. So Isaac lead them into the school's empty music room, and they all crouched down with their ears to the wall.

Erica concentrated her fine tuned hearing and shuffled through the noise of school, searching for Scott's familiar heartbeat. When she found it, she shared a smile with Isaac who, by the look on his face, had also found Scott. Then she reached out and squeezed Boyd's hand.

Scott was breathing in a slow, deliberate way, as if he was counting each breath. A moment later a pair of shuffling feet came near him and Stiles voice announced, “It's called battery.”

“What?” Scott asked dully.

A rattle of trays answered him, then the crunch of an apple as Stiles spoke, sounding mushy around the fruit. “When you were bitten. Assault and Battery is the legal definition. It's an unlawful attempt to injure another person; Intentional and unlawful use of force or violence on someone; unlawful touching of someone against their will; or unlawfully causing bodily harm to an individual.”

“You never told me that before,” Scott accused softly. “I thought you didn’t even...”

“Didn’t what?”

“Didn’t get it. I mean, you thought being a werewolf was awesome,” Scott mumbled. “That’s what you said anyway.”

“Oh.” Stiles sounded guilty. “Well, yeah, at first, before you started freaking out and trying to kill me.”

“I'm not trying to kill you now.”

“Yeah, I know. Look, don't wolf out on me for this, but I think the others might have a point.”

Erica shared a disbelieving look with Isaac and he silently mouthed “since when?” Erica shrugged and concentrated on Stiles’s voice.

“I mean, you're basically stuck like this, and yeah it sucks that you didn't get a choice like they did, but there's gotta be something good about it too. You've got super powers, how many kids can say that?”

“Four, counting me.”

“Okay smarty-wolf, but really, is there anything that makes all the crap worth it?” Stiles asked expectantly. Erica thought he sounded needy and huffed, not liking how Stiles had made her point.

Scott sighed, tired, and forged ahead. “Well, Deaton showed me something nice, and sometimes I run, just to get away from stuff. That's nice too. I don't need my inhaler, and I don't think about how my mom's gonna feel if I end up in the hospital again, but it feels like I just traded that worry for a hundred more and no matter what I do, I can't fix anything. Super powers are the whole reason we're in this mess, and they aren't helping solve it much. I just wish it would all go back to normal, and everybody was safe.”

“'Because if the people you love aren't safe, then you aren't either?” Stiles asked, understanding.

“Yeah,” Scott whispered. “I'm handling the werewolf thing. I kind of have to, but that doesn't make how it happened okay, and it's not worth losing my family. Nothing is.” He sighed. “I'm trying Stiles but--”

“You’re constantly stressed--”

“There’s monsters and hunters, and school--”

“Angry outbursts, nightmares, inability to concentrate.”

“What are you talking about?” Scott asked.

“Post traumatic stress.” Stiles replied like it was obvious. Scott must have given him a look at that because Stiles added defensively, “What, I looked it up.”

Erica stopped listening at that point. She was feeling like a voyeur, and not in a good way. Isaac looked at her and nodded at the door, asking if they should go after Scott, but Boyd shook his head. Erica didn’t like it but she had to agree. They’d better let Scott be or they might actually make things worse. The three of them slumped against the wall, and a glum silence descended as they all pulled out their hastily packed lunches, becoming absorbed in their own thoughts.

Saying yes had never been a question for Erica. She knew as soon as Derek offered her the bite she’d accept it whatever the cost. She’d wanted to live so badly. Whoever bit Scott didn’t ask him though, and Erica suddenly wondered if Scott saw their pack the same way Isaac saw his father. The idea made her feel guilty in a way being called whore and bitch never could.

The rest of the day was subdued, their plan crumbling under the weight of what they’d just learned. Erica wasn’t entirely heartless, no matter what her peers thought and she didn’t feel right about stalking Scott through the halls after lunch. Neither did Isaac or Boyd, and they sank back into their usual routine of mutual avoidance. When she did see Scott by accident, in the library or by the lockers, she’d watch him and feel sad. Sometimes he noticed, and they’d share a brief look before going their separate ways again.

By the time the last bell rang Erica was positively depressed. She collected her book bag and jacket and dragged her feet down the front steps with Boyd, Isaac a few steps behind them. When Derek pulled up in his shiny black car, Erica slid into the front passenger seat with a sigh, and the boys dropped into the back.

“So,” Derek’s steely voice rumbled as they pulled away from the curb. “Who wants to explain what happened today.”

Erica inwardly groaned. She didn’t even bother wondering how he knew. He always did. It was one of those Alpha things. Either that or he was getting stalker practice hanging around the school.

She didn’t want to talk about their day though, so she bluffed and tried to sound innocent. “Happened? Nothing happened.”

Derek’s heavy silence said he wasn’t buying it, and Erica brought a nail to her lips, stopping herself just shy of chewing on it. Nail polish was a good deterrent for that.

“We made a move on Scott,” Isaac eventually admitted from the back. Erica winced and waited for the explosion, but Derek said nothing, probably expecting details, and finally she turned away from the window.

“Is it true? That Scott was mauled in the woods?” she asked.

“He told you that?” Derek asked and she nodded. “Then you know it’s true,” he sighed. “We can’t lie to each other, not easily anyway. The only time a shape shifter can fool its own kind, is when it’s crazy enough to believe its own lies.”

“Well then is Scott part of the pack or not? You didn’t bite him.”

“Yes, and no,” he answered. “I can sense him, like you three. We share blood. But I can’t make him join us.”

“Why?”

“Because I’m better then that,” he answered, his voice weighed down with history. “Forcing someone into this is pointless and Scott’s a perfect example of why. It complicates things.” Derek sighed again and rolled his shoulders. “Look, he didn’t have a chance to say no when he was bitten. So now he’s saying no whenever he can, and I'm letting him because I want this to be his choice. I want him to have the power to make a choice, like you all did. You three shouldn’t push. He needs to work this out in his own time.”

“What if he never comes around?” Isaac dared.

“Then he’s meat for the hunters, and he knows that.”

“So he can join you, or die,” Boyd finished.

“I'm not letting him die,” Derek growled.

“Then, he doesn't have a choice after all.” Boyd looked disturbed, and Derek didn’t respond. Erica quietly gripped her seat, wanting something solid that wouldn’t shift underneath her, like her understanding of Scott had.

Derek wasn’t going to take no for an answer, no matter how much time he gave Scott. He was a favorite of Derek’s, and Erica didn’t need the Alpha to tell her that. It was obvious. Scott didn’t feel the same though, at least she didn’t think so. She remembered how desperate Scott had looked, fighting her and Isaac on the ice-rink, like he was trying to save Boyd from something terrible. That made a little more sense now.

She could back off, like Derek asked. Let Scott figure things out, like she was figuring herself out. Erica didn't know who she was anymore, but she knew what she wasn't. She wasn't meek, she wasn't sick, she wasn't cute, and she wasn't nice. She supposed Scott was doing the same thing, deciding what he wasn’t going to be, before choosing anything else.

The bite had changed everything for Erica, and while it would never get old seeing heads swivel in her wake, jaws drop and milk splatter, at the end of the day it was just a fun ride. The real thing didn't come from the who's who at lunch and locker room talk. It came after, in the dark, dusty hall of a warehouse with an empty subway car, and a glowering Alpha. That was where her life was now. Maybe someday it would Scott’s too, but if not, well, maybe that was okay too.

The End