Scott entered the hospital, his steps heavy, his heart pounding like a drum of terror and doubt.
He was looking for “Mr. Myers,” the man he had seen in the Sheriff’s photos—the man who had haunted his nightmares.
He found Melissa in the hallway.
Forcing a weak smile, he handed her the dinner bag.
— “Is my beautiful, talented, and wonderful son actually bringing me dinner?” Melissa asked with a tired smile, though she caught the turmoil in his eyes.
— “I thought you wouldn’t mind skipping the cafeteria tonight,” Scott said, his voice raspy.
Melissa laughed softly and said, “You are the most thoughtful, loving, and deceptive little hustler ever. You’re still not getting the car tomorrow night.”
— “Mom…” he tried to protest.
— “What? There’s a curfew, no car. But I’ll take this. I love you,” she said, taking the food and continuing on her way.
Taking advantage of her distraction, Scott slipped quickly toward Room 304.
He pushed the heavy wooden door open slowly, finding the room plunged in an eerie silence, broken only by the steady beeping of the heart monitors.
“Mr. Myers” lay on the bed, his body covered in bandages.
The deep gashes beneath the gauze hinted at the sheer brutality of the attack he had suffered.
Scott approached with extreme caution, holding his breath.
He leaned over the man, scrutinizing his disfigured features, trying to find any link between this man and the nightmare he had lived.
Suddenly, with a swift motion, Mr. Myers snapped his bloodshot eyes open and began to shake hysterically.
— “You!…” the man gasped, his voice raspy and filled with sheer terror.
“You were there! I saw you! Help me! Aaaaah!”
The man lunged and grabbed Scott’s hand, gripping it with a strength that shouldn’t belong to a patient in his condition.
He began to shake it violently and frantically, while the monitors emitted a sharp, continuous flatline shriek.
Scott froze in place, paralyzed by shock.
In that exact moment, Melissa burst into the room.
When she witnessed the scene, her eyes widened in utter disbelief and fear.
— “Scott! What the hell are you doing? Get out! Now! Go!”
Melissa violently pulled Scott away from the bed while the man continued to scream unintelligible names.
She shoved Scott out of the room, slammed the door shut, and dragged him by the arm to a dark corner at the end of the hallway.
— “Scott, look at me!” Melissa shouted, her breath coming in short gasps.
“You’re shaking like you’ve seen a ghost! What’s wrong? And why is that man screaming at you?”
Scott was panting, his face as pale as death.
He looked at his mother with eyes full of tears and dread, and said in a broken voice:
— “Mom.. he recognized me.. he said I was there.. Mom, he’s not lying! I *was* there, I did it! The monster inside me.. it’s real, and I’m the one who tore him apart!”
Melissa gasped, feeling her own body tremble.
She took her son’s face in her hands, speaking in a tone she tried to keep firm despite her fear:
— “Scott, listen to me carefully. You didn’t do anything! You are still human, and I am here with you. Tell me the truth.. what is happening in there? Is it something related to Werewolves and Vampires? I am your mother, tell me everything, Scott!”
Scott burst into tears and began to confess everything to her—about the nightmare, about the Alpha, about his confrontation with Derek, about the transformation he felt happening, and about the terror eating him up from the inside.
Melissa held him tightly, trying to protect him from the world, and from the monster growing inside her son’s body.
Melissa stopped hugging him and looked at him with a sad, broken expression, finally realizing the depth of the terror controlling him.
She gripped his face, forcing him to look at her:
— “Listen to me carefully, Scott. You are under immense pressure, and your body is going through changes that science doesn’t understand. Derek Hale is brainwashing you, and these ‘nightmares’ might just be memories from the ‘Alpha’ who bit you, not necessarily your own actions.”
— “But he saw me! He saw me, Mom!” Scott collapsed to the floor, tears streaming down his face.
“I don’t want to be a monster. I taste blood in my dreams, I feel it in my mouth.. If it was me, I’ll kill myself before I kill someone else.”
Melissa gasped in horror at her son’s words about suicide.
She knelt beside him and pulled him tightly to her chest, feeling the tremors of a strong body that no longer resembled the teenager she knew.
— “You haven’t killed anyone. You are not a monster, you are Scott McCall, my son. Don’t let those monsters convince you that you’re one of them. If you were there, we will find proof. And if you weren’t, then someone or something is trying to manipulate your mind.”
Scott whispered through his tears, “And what if he’s trying to destroy me from within? What if the Alpha is planting his memories in my mind to make me accept him?”
Melissa looked at the door, then back at her son with fierce determination: “If that’s the case, we will fight it together. I won’t let you face this alone, even if I have to confront Derek Hale myself. Now, get out of here before the Sheriff sees you in the hospital and asks questions you can’t answer.”
On the other side of town, in a quiet park square, the atmosphere was charged with a different kind of tension.
Bonnie stood facing Elena, her eyes gleaming with absolute defiance:
— “No, Elena! I don’t trust him. When I touched his arm on the night of the comet.. I didn’t feel anything human. It was like touching a cold void, something that doesn’t belong in this world. It’s unsettling—it’s terrifying!”
Elena sighed in frustration, trying to calm Bonnie down:
— “You’re overreacting, Bonnie! Stefan is polite and sophisticated. Just give him one chance. Come to dinner tonight.. you, me, and him. I promise you’ll change your mind when you see his other side.”
Bonnie cut her off firmly: “I’m not going. And I won’t let that kind of ‘mystery’ get any closer to me.”
At that moment, Allison and Lydia approached with confident strides.
Allison looked at Bonnie’s tense expression and asked curiously:
— “What’s going on? You guys look like you’re about to declare war.”
Elena explained the situation quickly, causing Allison’s eyes to light up with excitement:
— “Dinner? That’s a fantastic idea! Don’t say no, Bonnie, it’ll be a nice change of routine. And to break the ice, I’ll bring Scott with me! It’ll be great for all of us to hang out away from school stress.”
Lydia glanced at Jackson, who was staring at his broken arm cast in fury, then turned to Elena with a faux smile:
— “And I’ll bring Jackson, if you don’t mind, Elena, of course. We need a night filled with entertainment. Everyone here seems to be hiding from something anyway.”
Bonnie frowned, feeling the trap closing in around her: “Are you all seriously ganging up on me for this?”
Lydia laughed with cold irony: “Oh Bonnie, life is full of dangers. Stefan isn’t the only threat you should worry about at school. I mean, did you see what happened at the bus depot today? God only knows what’s happening to this town now. The bodies are piling up, and every report claims it’s animal attacks.”
The girls went quiet at Lydia’s words, a cold shiver running down their spines.
Allison smiled and nervously changed the subject, saying, “So Elena, when is this dinner going to be? And at what time? There’s a 9:00 PM curfew for the rest of the week, as you know.”
Elena replied, “It will be the day after tomorrow, Allison, at 6:00 PM. Does that work?”
Lydia nodded.
“Perfect.” Read this novel at g.com for the best experience.
Meanwhile, from around the corner of the walkway, Stefan watched the scene in silence.
His gaze wasn’t that of an ordinary person; it was a calculating, precise observation of every movement.
He whispered to himself in a tone no human could hear:
— “Dinner.. everyone will be in one place. What a perfect time for meaningless teenage drama. Sometimes I forget how old I truly am for this stuff.”
Stefan hummed as he observed Bonnie, then thought, *Her magical powers as a Bennett descendant must be starting to manifest.
I need to be careful around her.*
Scott left the hospital with stumbling steps, navigating the darkness of the night as if the entire world was closing in on him.
Behind him, Melissa stood in the hallway, trembling with a mixture of rage and despair.
She wasn’t angry at Scott; she was angry at the fate that had robbed him of his innocence.
She retreated to her office, her hand shaking as she pulled out her phone.
The screen lit up with transfer requests to hospitals in distant states—potential escape routes, a new life far away from the curse of “Mystic Hills.” She closed the phone violently, as if trying to shut a gateway to hell.
She walked to the storage room, locked the door firmly behind her, and opened the bottom drawer to pull out a bottle of a potent medical sedative.
She stared at the liquid inside with sorrowful eyes, then whispered in a broken voice:
— “I’m sorry, Scott.. I love you more than anything, but I cannot watch you shatter like this.. I’ve made my decision.”
The night in “Mystic Hills” wore a cloak of thick blackness, and the creeping fog from the woods wrapped around the mangled bus at the school depot.
Scott slipped through the shadows.
The smell of rust and dampness filled his nose, but it was nothing compared to the scent of death still hanging in the air like a toxic cloud.
He stood before the bus; its sides were torn open as if struck by giant steel claws.
Scott took a deep breath, remembering Derek’s words: *”Let your senses flood in.. tune into your surroundings.”* He closed his eyes and raised his hand to touch the twisted metal.
At first, he felt nothing but the night’s chill, but he pushed his senses to their absolute limit, letting the repressed wolf instinct take over his consciousness.
Suddenly, the world around him shifted.
The howling wind became screams, and the darkness transformed into a living vision.
He found himself inside the bus.
The vision was blurred, but the reality was horrifying.
He saw Mr. Myers, wailing in pain, surrounded by four masked figures.
Scott wasn’t the attacker—he was trying to reach him, screaming at them to leave him alone!
He tried to rush toward Mr. Myers, but a massive man among the four ripped a metal seat from its hinges and hurled it at him with sheer brutality, striking Scott’s shoulder and knocking him to the floor.
In his mind, Scott watched as Mr. Myers was dragged away, the man’s screams tearing the silence to shreds.
Then, they began to rip him apart, limb from limb, in a slow, sadistic motion that made his skin crawl.
And with every movement, their eyes glowed.
Three of them had eyes gleaming a deep, dark sky-blue—the color of killers—while the fourth, who directed them silently, had eyes glowing a crimson red, like fresh blood under the moonlight.
Scott gasped sharply, his eyes snapping open back to reality to find himself standing amidst the wreckage, breaking into a cold sweat.
His heart was hammering wildly, not just from fear, but from the euphoria of realization..
*”It wasn’t me!
I wasn’t the one who did it!”* he whispered to himself in awe.
Before he could even think about leaving, he heard the distant sound of sirens approaching fast.
Scott ran toward the nearby fence, scaling it with superhuman agility, vanishing into the shadows of the trees just as the police patrol searchlights illuminated the area.
As he panted in the heart of the woods, his phone vibrated in his pocket.
He pulled it out slowly, thinking it was a message from his mother, but he froze in his tracks when he read:
“Hello Scott.. it’s Stefan.”
Scott furrowed his brows in confusion: *”How did he get my number?”* Before he could type a reply, another message arrived:
“Mr. Myers died from his injuries.. did you feel anything strange inside you? Did your eye color change?”
The phone slipped from his hand.
It was as if Stefan had been watching him at the bus, or as if his eyes could see what others couldn’t.
The blood froze in his veins, then the coldness suddenly turned into a burning rage in his chest.
This was no longer fear; it was a volcanic fury that could not be contained.
“Derek..” Scott whispered, his fangs automatically extending, tearing slightly into his gums.
Derek had manipulated him.
He made him doubt himself, made him believe he was a monster, made him face an unbearable psychological terror—all while Derek was the one who had killed Mr. Myers this whole time.
Derek wanted to use him as a Beta, a tool to execute his crimes.
He was the Alpha who turned him, and he was the one who summoned him to a mass slaughter of Mr. Myers last night.
Scott crushed the phone in his fist until the glass shattered, unleashing a savage roar into the empty forest that shook the leaves on the trees.
He no longer wanted to be anyone’s Beta, and he refused to be a killing tool.
He wanted to find Derek Hale—not to learn from him, but to force him to pay for every lie and every night of terror he had lived because of his sick games.
Scott smashed through the door of the dilapidated Hale house with a violent shoulder check, the old wood splintering and collapsing into debris beneath his feet.
His rage was ablaze, fueling his werewolf strength which was now seizing control of every cell in his body.
— “Derek! I know you’re here! I know what you did!” Scott roared, his voice echoing through the dark house like a cornered beast.
From the shadows of the upper floor, Derek Hale appeared, hands in his pockets, wearing his usual stony expression.
— “I didn’t do anything,” Derek answered with an infuriating calm.
— “You killed him! Mr. Myers is dead!” Scott roared, advancing toward the stairs, his eyes flashing with a feral glow.
Derek replied with indifference: “He’s dead. That’s reality.”
Scott laughed bitterly: “Like your sister who died?”
Derek stiffened, a spark of fury igniting in his eyes: “My sister was missing. I came here looking for her.”
— “And you found her,” Scott shot back defiantly.
— “I think you killed them both! I’m telling everyone everything, starting with the Sheriff!” Scott said, moving to ascend, but Derek was faster.
In the blink of an eye, Derek lunged, delivering a resounding punch to Scott’s jaw that sent him flying through the air.
He crashed from the top of the stairs onto the wooden floor with a shattering impact.
Scott stood up immediately, no longer human; fur covered his face, his fangs bared, and his claws extended.
Derek pounced on him, and a brutal brawl erupted.
Scott charged at Derek like a hurricane of repressed rage, his claws slashing through the air.
His fighting lacked technique, but he compensated with raw, brute strength born of his panic.
Derek, with his seasoned body, evaded the strikes with lethal grace, moving as if dancing in a war zone.
Suddenly, Derek locked his fist around Scott’s throat and hurled him with immense force against the stone wall of the house.
The bricks shattered against Scott’s back, but he didn’t waver; instead, he leaped from the rubble like a panther, closing the distance between them in a fraction of a second.
Scott dug his claws deep into Derek’s shoulder, making the older wolf roar in pain, but Derek countered with a powerful headbutt that bloodied Scott’s nose, followed by a spinning kick to his chest that launched him across the room, smashing an old wooden chair to splinters beneath his weight.
Scott felt the “beast” inside him shatter its chains; his eyes turned a glowing, vibrant yellow, and his fangs fully extended.
He let out a roar that shook the very walls of the house and lunged at Derek.
This time, he wasn’t fighting like a human, but like an apex predator.
They locked together in the center of the room, the sounds of tearing flesh and shredded clothes ripping through the silence.
Derek grabbed Scott’s arms, trying to paralyze his movements, but Scott used his overwhelming physical strength to drive him backward until they crashed into a large table, flipping it upside down.
The fight didn’t stop; Derek capitalized on a split second of distraction, twisting behind Scott and locking him in a suffocating chokehold, attempting to break his resistance.
The grinding of bones was audible in the room.
Gasping for air, Scott used his claws to tear through Derek’s shirt, gashing his back deeply and forcing Derek to loosen his grip.
Scott spun quickly, landing a direct punch to Derek’s jaw that sent him staggering back.
Derek gave him no respite, pouncing forward again, this time with sky-blue eyes gleaming with deep darkness, his claws extending to a terrifying length.
They clashed once more, punches exchanging at a speed faster than the human eye could follow.
In a sudden surge, Scott drove Derek toward the large window, shattering the glass entirely as they tumbled out together onto the ground outside.
They rolled over the dew-covered grass, wrestling under the pale moonlight—Derek on top of Scott, choking the breath out of him, while Scott tried to push Derek’s face away with his claws.
Derek continued to exert pressure on Scott’s throat.
Then, in one swift motion, he gathered his immense muscular strength, grabbed Scott by the collar, and threw him with insane force back through the shattered window frame.
Scott went flying back into the house, crashing onto the wooden floor so hard that dust billowed from the cracks.
Before Scott could catch his breath or regain his balance, Derek entered the house like a flash of lightning.
He attacked without mercy, raining heavy, calculated punches down on his face, one after another, like iron hammers.
The punches echoed through the empty house as Scott’s hands tried desperately, but fruitlessly, to shield his face.
Derek paused for a moment, then grabbed Scott’s shredded shirt, lifting him into the air with a single arm as if Scott weighed nothing, before slamming him into the ground with all his might.
Scott’s body hit the floor with a force that left him groaning in agony.
Scott moaned in unbearable pain, his body trembling violently.
Then, his claws began to retract, and the thick fur faded from his face, returning him to his exhausted, broken human form.
He lay sprawled on the floor, eyes tearing up from pain and humiliation, his breath ragged and shallow.
Derek stood over him coldly, his breathing steady despite everything that had transpired, his eyes still flashing with that dark blue gleam, signaling the end of the fight in Scott’s crushing defeat.
— “That was cute,” Derek said, wiping a drop of blood from his lip.
“I didn’t kill him. Neither of us did. It’s not your fault, and it’s not mine.”
Scott screamed, tears mixing with the blood on his face: “This? This is all your fault! You destroyed my life!”
— “No, I didn’t,” Derek replied with a strange calmness, taking a step back.
— “You’re the one who bit me!”
Derek stopped completely, looking down at Scott with haunting blue eyes: “No, I’m not.”
Scott recoiled, his eyes wide with shock: “What?!”
— “I’m not the one who bit you,” Derek repeated seriously.
— “If you’re not the Alpha.. then who is?!”
Derek took a deep breath, reverting to his human form: “Another werewolf, one I don’t know. He’s the most dangerous of our kind. And you are *his* Beta. This thing is stronger, and far more savage than any of us. My sister came here looking for him.. Now I’m trying to find him, but I don’t think I can do it without you.”
Scott asked in a trembling voice: “Why me?”
Derek stepped closer, looking directly into his eyes: “Because he’s the one who bit you. You are part of his pack. It’s you, Scott.. you are the one he wants.”
A suffocating silence filled the house as Scott stood in the darkness, realizing that his life wasn’t just a nightmare—it was the beginning of a war far greater than he could ever imagine.
A great distance from the house, amidst the dense, dark forest where the tree branches intertwined like the fingers of a giant monster, a pair of glowing crimson eyes watched the scene with predatory focus.
The owner of these eyes wasn’t just an observer; he possessed a presence that filled the area with an oppressive, suffocating dread.
From the deep shadows, Billy Malraux slipped out with fiendish stealth.
He stopped beside the shadow holding the crimson eyes, his own eyes glowing a cold sky-blue—the mark of a werewolf whose hands were stained with blood.
Billy looked toward the dilapidated Hale house, then turned to his master and said in a mocking tone:
— “Shall we crash their little party, Alpha? It looks like Derek is starting to vent his anger on a rebellious boy.”
The Alpha didn’t turn.
His red eyes remained fixed on Scott, who was beginning to rise with difficulty from the floor of the house, dragging his feet in defeat and exhaustion as he headed back toward the woods, limping toward his home.
The Alpha spoke in a deep, gravelly voice that sounded like grinding stones:
— “No. Let them tear each other apart. Family blood is always sweeter when mixed with betrayal and doubt. You and your brothers focus on the primary mission: find that ‘Coyote’. I want no mistakes this time.”
Billy bowed his head in respect and obedience, the mockery instantly vanishing from his face:
— “As you command, Alpha.”
Without making a sound, Billy melted back into the shadows, his presence vanishing completely as if he were nothing more than a piece of the forest’s darkness.
The Alpha remained alone in his vantage point, watching Scott McCall slowly walk away under the pale, faded moonlight.
An expression blending dread and dark fascination washed over the Alpha’s face as he watched the boy he had turned stumble from the sheer weight of the shock.
The Alpha whispered to himself, his voice echoing through the woods like a funereal echo:
— “Scott McCall.. you are something else entirely, truly. A weak teenager daring to stand against my authority? How fascinating you are…”
With his final word, the Alpha leaned back into the darkness, sinking into the pitch-black shadows, vanishing entirely as if the forest itself had swallowed him whole, leaving behind a heavy air thick with the scent of the coming danger.