[ t h i r t y o n e ]

t h i r t y  o n ew e a k

AFTER ERICA HAD TAKEN OUT PARTS OF STILES'S JEEP THAT SEEMED IMPORTANT, HE FELT OBLIGATED TO TAKE THE CAR TO A MECHANIC. Her girlfriend decided to join him because she felt partially guilty of him ending up unconscious in a dumpster with his jeep destroyed in the first place.

He insisted her that it wasn't her fault, that he had told her by text to go to the ice-skating rink instead of joining him to Boyd's place. Yet, she felt like she needed to protect him more than she protected Scott.

She wanted to spend time with him, do normal teenage romance things like make out sessions and picnic dates. She wanted him to be her escape from the supernatural, yet... Stiles had a tendency to be followed by every supernatural creature in Beacon Hills.

"Hey... Hey!" Stiles shouted to the mechanic as he walked hand in hand with Amelia. "What— What do you think you're doing? All I needed was a starter."

Amelia decided to simply listen, although she didn't see anything bad with what the guy was doing. He was fixing his jeep, and the car really needed it.

"Yeah, but it looks like your whole exhaust system has gotta be replaced, too," explained the young mechanic, and Amelia looked up and saw it.

Maybe he was right.

"Why do I get the feeling you're slightly overestimating the damage?"

"It's probably gonna run you around, like, 1,200, parts and labor," explained the mechanic, making Amelia scoff.

"Are you kidding!?" Exclaimed Stiles in disbelief. "This thing doesn't even have a catalytic converter!" The guy looked down to stare Stiles and Amelia. "And, yes, I know what a catalytic converter is."

"You sure?" His girlfriend asked him, making him look at her seriously. She understood that it was better for her to shut up.

"You know what a limited slip differential is?" The mechanic asked him.

Stiles pretended to think about it, when Amelia knew that he did not know what that was.

"No..." whispered Stiles, admitting defeat.

"You, could run you more like 1,500."

Amelia was about to punch the guy when Stiles, stopped her, hugging her against him before sighing.

"Okay, just finish," he told him before dragging Amelia away. "We'll be back here... seething with impotent rage," her boyfriend mumbled before grabbing the handle of the door, noticing it had some kind of sticky thing on it.

"Ew," said the girl as Stiles looked to his hand, "that's real sanitary," she mumbled sarcastically before Amelia opened the door herself, letting him enter.

Stiles cleaned his hand with his hoodie before looking at the picture framed on the wall, noticing it was a shot of the mechanic when he was in high school. Amelia in the meantime was looking for a tissue to clean herself with.

"God, I hate cocky lacrosse players," whispered Amelia as she watched her boyfriend trying to text on his phone, but not being able to. "Stiles... Stiles what's wrong?" He dropped the phone, staring at his hands as they began to tremble.

The guy looked up towards his jeep and the girl did the same, noticing a black figure on top of it. The girl was about to alert the mechanic when she felt like she couldn't move, looking down to her hands to notice the same problem Stiles was having.

It took a few seconds before both were on the floor. Stiles drag himself through the rug, trying to reach the door while Amelia started to dial with all her strength on her boyfriend's phone.

9... 1...

She heard the mechanic ask for help, but Stiles couldn't reach him.

"Amelia," the her boyfriend called her with all his strength. "Close your eyes."

She listened to him, closing them, but when she heard the platform that was holding Stiles's jeep crush the mechanic, she opened them, and what she saw made a tear leave her eye.

"Stiles..."

"Don't open them," Stiles insisted before being scared but something that she didn't see as she closed her eyes. "Please, do not open them."

Two seconds went by until she heard the voice of the operator.

"911, what's your emergency?"

• • •

"I told you. We just walked in and saw the jeep on top of the guy," was the thing Stiles said to his dad as Amelia was laying her head on his shoulder, with her eyes closed.

They were surrounded by ambulances, cops, and too many noises. Stiles had covered Amelia with a blanket, not wanting to let her go by any motive.

He had just watched as the guy got crushed by the jeep, without being able to move or to scream for help.

He simply didn't want to let Amelia go.

"Amelia?" Melissa called her as she arrived to the scene, closing the door of her car and running towards her. "I got a call at the hospital, honey, are you okay?"

No, she wasn't okay.

She has never felt more weak, more useless, more defenseless in her entire life. She felt like a little girl under that blanket, scared for her life.

"What happened?" Asked Melissa to the Sheriff and Stiles as the woman placed a hand on the girl's cheek.

"They saw a guy under Stiles's jeep... dead," the Sheriff told the woman, making her gasp before looking at Amelia.

"Honey, let me take you home, okay?"

The girl looked over to Stiles, watching him nod before she stood up from the ambulance, letting Melissa place an arm over her shoulders, walking her to the car.

"When we get home, I'm gonna make you a chicken soup and I'm gonna let you sleep, okay..."

Amelia got in the car and looked up towards Stiles. He was still seating there, looking at her with a small smile on his face, trying to comfort her.

She's seen worse things yet, for some reason, that was the worst experience she'd ever had in her life.

"Amy, do you want anything?" Asked her Melissa on the drive home.

"I want my mom..."

She wasn't the type of person to cry out for mommy, yet she wanted her.

She missed her.

Her dad took her mom from her even though she was completely human, and up to she knows, he could have told her she was dead.

Her mom couldn't even be looking for her. She could have moved on from her and Lizzie by now.

• • •

The scene at the garage kept replaying in her head over and over again as she laid her head on the pillow, unable to close her eyes.

She heard the curtains of her room move, and a new weight on the bed.

"What do you want?" She asked between sobs. "Today is really not a good day, and you're beginning to look like a stalker."

"I came here to apologize," was the thing Derek said. The girl kept staring at the wall, giving him her back entirely. She didn't want to look at him, she didn't want to look at anyone. "Amy..."

"Please leave me alone," she asked him, more like begged him. She felt as the warm tears ran through her face before landing on the pillow underneath him. "Derek, please leave..."

"Amelia, I'm really sorry... but I had to do it, it was the only way to make Scott see that it's better if we stick together. And what happened today, to you... you need me and I need you."

"Derek..."

"Amy... you have to help me kill that thing..."

"Stop!" She exclaimed before standing up, tossing a pillow at him. Derek grabbed it mid-air before putting it down, looking at her. "I don't want to be in your pack. I don't want to help you kill the Argents or that thing. I don't want to be your sister or anything! I don't want to look at you anymore because I can't forgive you for what you did! So please, Derek, do me the favor of just leaving me alone!"

Melissa opened the door of the room, making Amelia turn around abruptly to look at her before looking back where Derek was sitting, now no longer there. The girl looked at Melissa again, who was staring at her worried.

"I heard you yelling..." whispered Melissa before approaching the girl's bed. "Are you okay, honey?"

Amelia looked again towards the window, noticing that the curtains were still moving due to the wind.

"I'll be fine..."

• • •

"So," said Melissa to her as she arrived at Amelia's room, sitting on her bed. The girl was covering her eyes with her pillow, trying to keep sleeping. "I dropped Lizzie off, I called the school and let them know you are not going today. Then, I called the station and they understood since, well, they were there, and the sheriff insisted for you to take all week if you like. He mentioned that you are not much needed..." she whispered the last, making Amelia take the pillow off her face and look at her. "Anyway, I took the day off, telling my boss I was gonna cover my hours today later in the week. So you and I can spend the entire day together."

Oh God.

Oh my God.

"Melissa," she called the woman and this one raised her eyebrows. "You didn't have to, really."

"I know, I wanted to," let her know. "We can do whatever you want. You know what I've always wanted to learn? How to do my eyeliner the way you do it. Could you teach me?"

Amelia just wanted to be alone. After her tiny fight with Derek and evading Stiles's constant calls, she just wanted to sleep and maybe cry a little.

"Okay..." said Melissa after a few seconds of silence. "I understand, you feel like you should have helped that man, but you couldn't, Amy, and that's okay. Now, the only thing you have to do is regain control. What is the thing you are really good at? The thing that makes you feel powerful... What is it?"

Amelia looked up towards her, thinking about it for a few seconds before smiling a bit.

• • •

She let go of the string, releasing the arrow and this one landing in the tree, making Melissa jump.

"I was expecting drawing, if I'm honest... but this is okay too."

"Do you want to try?" Melissa raised her eyebrows before sighing, nodding with her head. "I'm much better at this that eyeliner."

The woman laughed before grabbing the bow, placing the arrow. Amelia showed her the steps and the correct from and the woman nodded, following them.

"Go!" Exclaimed Amelia and Melissa let go off the arrow with a little shriek, making Amelia chuckle a bit before burst out laughing.

The arrow didn't even fly, it just fell right to her feet.

"Well that was humiliating," mentioned the woman while Amelia laughed, closing her eyes. Melissa didn't take long to join her. "Oh, please," she begged between laughter, "it wasn't that bad!"

"I'm so sorry," said Amelia, trying to hold her laughter, but not being able to. "Oh, God..."

"Let me try again!" Exclaimed the woman between giggles, proceeding to take another arrow from the bag. "Hey, why is this one different?"

Amelia cleared her throat before grabbing the arrow, showing the tip to Melissa.

"She this right there?" She asked, pointing the little opening of the arrow to the woman. "Inside, there's this plant called Aconite, or Wolfsbane. It's not lethal, or anything, at least not for humans. But for animals, such as a wolf or a coyote, it could kill them when the plant enters their body, but not immediately. It's used as a tranquilizer, to move animals around while they sleep. When you inject them cure and... they stand up again, like new. It's like the poison wasn't there in the first place."

"Why do you have that?" Melissa asked her and the girl chuckled.

"My dad... he used to hunt wolves. He didn't give them the cure, though," the girl whispered to herself. "It's the only thing I have left from him, and I'm saving it..."

"For when you see a wolf?" Questioned Melissa before chuckling. "Good luck with that."

"Yeah," she whispered. "Okay!" Amelia placed the arrow back on her bag before grabbing one with the red strip at the end, the normal ones. "Here, now, this time, try to make the arrow actually leave."

• • •

When they both walked towards the house again, Amelia was surprised when she saw Scott and Stiles looked at them confused.

Probably it was because she was carrying her bow, and Melissa was next to him.

"Mom..." called him Scott and she raised her eyebrows. "What are you doing?"

"Well, me and Amelia decided to have a girls only day," said the woman. "And she taught me how to use a bow and arrow, which was, indeed, pretty awesome." Amelia laughed.

"You have natural talent." Melissa rolled her eyes before looking at them. "Don't you guys have a lacrosse game to attend to?"

"We were here to pick you up," let her know Stiles. "You didn't come to school all day and you didn't answer to any of my calls."

Amelia sighed. "Sorry, I just, I didn't think of talking to anyone today. Actually, Melissa dragged me out of bed, if I'm honest." The woman nodded.

"Well, I'll leave you guys." Melissa turned around to look at the girl. "Thank you for sharing this with me." She knew Scott was raising his eyebrows. "Next step: eyeliner."

"You got it," said Amelia before the woman walked away. "She's great."

Scott was upset. She could sense it. And she felt grateful that she could sense it.

Maybe Derek was right: she only needed a little bit of action to get her powers back.

"You taught my mom how to use a bow and arrow?" Was the thing Scott asked her. "What were you thinking?"

"It's a sport, Scott, it's not like I showed her my bright purple eyes before I sprinted away like The Flash. Besides, she asked me to. I kinda told her last night that I missed my mom and she decided to make it up for it or something. And we had a good time, I do not see the problem."

"Just..." Scott whispered. "She can't know."

"And she won't," told her Amelia. "So... are we going to your lacrosse game or not?"