I'm DISCLAIMER:

Hey, guys!

I just wanted to make it clear I DO NOT OWN Teen Wolf, in any way. The characters, timeline, and anything else to do with the show is accredited to Jeff Davis and the other amazing writers. I watched one episode of Teen Wolf and was instantly
/hooked. In the middle of one of the seasons, I got an idea for this story, and I have been writing it ever since.

The only claims I make are to Stella and her backstory.

P.S. Thanks in advance for reading my story. I am always open to comments!

Love you all :)

Additional Authors Note: I am currently in the process of working out the kinks in this story! Every chapter I revise will have an author note at the end of it. This process shouldn't take long, as I want to get back to continuing this story ASAP. So, please stay with me here :) I promise it will be worth it.

"No! Please, stop!"

Screams echo off the walls of my room, jolting me awake. As my eyes flash open, I hold tight to the comforter covering me, taking deep breaths to calm myself. My eyes search my bedroom for signs of something out of the ordinary. But, everything is just the same as it was before I fell asleep; the door leading to my shared bathroom is still cracked open, no light is streaming in from the hallway, and the ticking of the hands to my Avengers clock is the only noise to be heard. Maybe the screams I heard where part of a nightmare. It could have all been in my head.

"Don't do this-I-it's me!"

Nope, not in my head. It sounds like it's coming from downstairs, and I know for sure it's my twin brother. Without hesitation, I throw my covers off me and quickly sprint from my room to the top of the stairs. Heart pounding against my ribcage, crazy scenarios of what might be happening flash through me with every beat. My father is the sheriff. Who would be insane enough to break into his home? Someone would have to be Joker crazy to believe they can get away with this.

Trying to be as stealthy as one can be, I tiptoe down the stairs. Though, it's becoming harder to be cautious as I hear more pain filled yells. I want to run to him, not caring about the noise, or who might down there. Stiles's is more than just my brother. He's my best friend, my other half. His misery hurts me too; it's tearing at me, stripping away my rationality. Who cares if I get injured? I need to save my brother.

Deciding to screw being careful, I bound down the stairs. Right as I reach the last one, an object an object drops from the ceiling, landing on my face and darkening the world around me. I find myself unable to contain the shrill scream that follows.

"Stella! Stella, it's just me. Wake up!"

Once again, I am jolted awake. But this time it's real, not a memory turned nightmare. It used to be a rare thing, having nightmares, but now they plague my nights. No matter how many times I have my infamous dream, one aspect still lingers when I wake
theguilt. It's a parasite, feeding off my unresolved emotions, the sorry I never got to say. Maybe the regret is the reason that fateful night still haunts me, causing me to cry out in the darkness, only to wake up when someone wraps me in theirarms
and whispers comforting words. Or maybe the haunting memory serves as a reminder of a time I failed my family. And how I can't ever let it happen again.

Grabbing hold of Stiles's shoulder's, I take a look at my alarm clock. One in the morning? Is he crazy? I may be thankful he woke me before the worst part of my nightmare happened, but I am not gracious for the interruption of my beauty sleep. We haveto
be up in six hours; tomorrow is the first day of sophomore year. If I don't get my seven hours of sleep, I become a grouch. And considering my best friend, Isaac Lahey, is naturally a grump - a grump I drive to school every day - I need to be cheery
/in the mornings to balance out our friendship. We can't both be Debby Downers.

"Stiles, please tell me you didn't come in here to discuss how you leveled up on your computer game," I groan, throwing myself back onto my pillow. His excitement sometimes goes off the rails, leading him to believe he needs to wake me up and tell me
/of his accomplishments on his online game. Every time it happens I assure him I'm proud and also insist next time he waits for a reasonable hour to deliver the news. He has yet to listen to me.

Stiles ignores my comment as he leans off my bed to pick up my favorite red sweatshirt. I am assuming him throwing it at me is what woke me up. The question is, why is he throwing my clothes at me at one in the morning?

When my twin bounces up to grab a pair of my favorite dark-wash jeans from the clothing rack in my closet, I question his actions once again. "Uh, Stiles? What are you doing?"

"I think you mean what are we about to do?" He runs to his room, coming back seconds later with a flashlight and his cellphone. "We are going to go pick up Scott, and then go to Beacon Hill Preserve. Dad found a body."

"We can sneak into the morgue any time. The first day of school is tomorrow, Stiles. I need sleep, so I don't show up looking like a zombie from the Walking Dead."

Stiles pelts a black beanie at my face. "No! We have to go now, Stella. The body is cut in two, and the deputies only found one of the halves. You, me, and Scott are going to find the other," Stiles starts towards the hallway, "Now, let's go!"

A body split in two? Here, in Beacon Hills? No way in Hel am I going to miss this. In my lifetime, I may never come across a more thrilling crime, not in this town. Beacon Hill doesn't have severe cases. Small robberies are considered most deviant here.

"Okay, I am coming. Wait for me!" I jump out of bed tugging my sweatshirt over my oversized nightshirt and then wiggle into my skinny jeans. Finding half a body is worth exhaustion I will feel tomorrow.

Freshly fallen leaves crunch under my black combat boots, while the slight breeze nips at my nose. Autumn is my favorite time of year. The days are warm and the nights have a chill to them. Also, fall brings out this smell in the air, a smell reminding
/me of bonfires and s'mores. Being in the woods right now only enhances the delightful aroma.

"Are we seriously doing this," Scott complains, his voice coming out almost whiny.

Scott McCall is my brother without blood relation. In kindergarten, I told him he reminded me of a puppy dog with his wide brown eyes, shaggy hair, and a playful grin. Stiles insisted Scott ignore my random comments, that I often said whatever I was thinking.
/But instead of being rude, Scott smiled at me and told me he dreamed of being a vet when he grew older. From that moment on we three have kind of been inseparable. Our parents aren't delighted by the trouble we often cause when together, but it's
/too late to split us up now. We would find a way back to each other.

I turn around to walk to backward since the boys are slugging along ever so slowly behind me. "Scott, it's half of a body. We will never get the chance to find one of these again. Think about it. This stuff doesn't happen twice in a person's lifetime."

"Aren't you the one always bitching that nothing ever happens in this town? Besides, it's our last night of summer freedom," Stiles adds on, closing the large gap between the two of them and me.

"I was trying to get a good night's sleep for practice tomorrow," Scott retorts irritably.

Stiles and Scott were bench warmers all freshmen year. Technically, all of us got to sit on the bench together last year, considering the only way I could get out of taking gym was being an assistant coach for the lacrosse team. I love Scott and Stiles
/to death, but they aren't star athletes. I am not saying they are terrible because they aren't. But, neither of them are poster kids for the sport. That is Jackson Whittemore's job.

"Right, because sitting on the bench is such a grueling effort," Stiles remarks, rolling his eyes.

"Hey, both of you have had all summer to practice. Who knows, you could make starting lineup this year! Or at the least be an alternative." Readjusting the beanie to cover my cold, little ears, I speed up my walking pace.

"I am with Stella. This year I am making starting lineup," Scott smiles. His expression is one of a child caught up in a daydream, his brown eyes shining with hope. It's a goal of his to be on the varsity team before we graduate. Coach only puts the best
/players on; he doesn't care what grade you are on, if you have no talent you may not play a single game the entire four years you are in high school.

"That's the spirit. Everyone should have a dream. Even a pathetically unrealistic one." Stiles passes Scott and me, scurrying past us. He can be a real sarcastic turd at times.

"Just out of curiosity, which half of the body are we looking for?" Scott glances over at me for the answer. All I can do is shrug my shoulders. After Stiles told me our father found half of a dead body, I didn't ask any questions. I guess the amazement
/of it got the best of me.

"Huh. I didn't even think about that," Stiles retorts, rubbing his chin.

"And what if whoever killed the girl is still out here?"

"Also something I didn't think about."

"Hey, getting chased by a murderer is a great excuse to miss the first day," I chime in.

"Stella, that's a twisted positive." Scott elbows my arm, letting out a chuckle. I grab onto him, moving my hands up and down his arm for some warmth. I should have grabbed gloves. "It's comforting to know you've planned this out with your usual attention
/to detail, Stiles. Didn't we talk about letting Stella be the one to listen to the police scanner? She is better with details."

With an elongated breath, Scott pulls out of my grip to lean against a nearby tree. He's had asthma ever since I have known him, but it never keeps him from doing what he pleases. Scott's the kind of person who doesn't let anything get in his way, always
/prevailing. I rub my hand against his back as he searches his pockets for his inhaler. Stiles doesn't even bother stopping for us, taking along the flashlight that is allowing us to be able to see.

"Maybe the severe asthmatic should be the one holding the flashlight," Scott calls after him, between huffs of breath.

I look past Stiles and notice up ahead there is yellow police tape blocking off an area of trees. It appears we have stumbled across the crime. "Guys, look up ahead," I point out the tape and Stiles grins with excitement.

Crouching low to the ground, I slowly walk/crawl towards a fallen tree, blocking me out of sight for any police officer that might still be on scene. Scott and Stiles take the spots next to me, all of us staring in different directions, our eyes searching
/for a clear pathway past the crime scene. The sound of a zipper causes Stiles to get too excited. He lurches forward, no longer caring about being shielded by the huge tree. Somewhere nearby an officer is wheeling away half of a person, and my brother
/wants to see that body.

"Stiles, wait up," Scott scream-whispers, but it's too late.

A barking dog approaches Stiles, it's hair standing straight up on it's back. Stiles stumbles backward, dropping the flashlight, seemingly frightened by the growling German Shepard. He goes to put his hands up, but he trips over the flashlight and falls
/on his butt. Leave it Stiles to drag me out of bed in the middle of the night to find a dead body, and then be the reason we don't see it. Cursing him under my breath, I go to help. Any trouble Stiles get himself into, I will jump into as well. What
/kind of twin would I be if I left him alone? Probably a smart one, but that's beside the point.

"You two, hold it right there!" A blinding light is pointed towards my face, and I shield my eyes from the brightness. Well if we weren't busted before, we for sure are now.

"Hold on, hold on, these two delinquents belong to me." Yup, we have been caught red-handed, and by none other than our dad. The light lowers to the ground, and I see my dad standing next to one of his deputies. He doesn't look the slightest bit surprised
/to us out here.

"Stiles, do you listen to all of my police calls?" Dad asks as Stiles gets to his feet, dusting off his now dirt-covered pants. Crossing his arms over his chest, our dad's green eyes narrow into a glare. His signature straight-lined frown follows suit.

"No...Not the boring ones."

"And where's your other partner in crime?" Dad's question is directed to me as if I would snitch on Scott.

"Last time I checked Stiles, and I are only twins, not triplets. We don't have any other partner in crime," I reply matter-of-factly. Scott's mom, aka Mama McCall, would be less than thrilled if my father escorted Scott home at this hour. Most days she
/pulls a double shift at the hospitals, and her rest is much needed. Beacon Hill's Hospital needs their best nurse at her peak performance.

"Scott might as well be your guy's triplet," our father mutters, shaking his head at Stiles and I. He has a point. We are always together, and when there's trouble, the three of us usually are present.

"Scott's home. Said he wanted to get a good night's sleep for the first day back to school," Stiles lies, pretty convincingly.

Dad looks back and forth from Stiles to me. I give him a tiny smile, hoping it sways him to believe we are telling the truth. My father lets out a sigh of defeat. "Young man, I can't believe you dragged your sister out here in the middle of the night.
/You do remember school starts tomorrow, right?"

Stiles put his hands up in annoyance, muttering who knows what under his breathe. Our father is well aware Stiles is the plan maker, and I just blindly follow along. So, he likes to rile Stiles up by pretending to put the blame all on him every time we
/get caught. For some reason, my brother still gets riled up by it.

"Dad, this was my idea," I say, keeping the joke going as we start towards his patrol car.

"No it wasn't, but you are just as guilty for going along with it," my dad chuckles, placing one hand on my shoulder and the other on Stiles.

"Yeah, you're right," I shrug.

"Really, Stella, really?" Stiles groans, giving me a glare for agreeing with our father. Stiles needs to calm down. It's not like dad is going to ground us, he's grown used to us causing trouble. If we don't take it too far, we always just get off with
/a warning. Having a sheriff as your father has its perks.

Right before I tumble into the backseat of the police car, I look back towards the woods, an ominous feeling building inside of me. Something tells me this dead body may be the first of many. I shake my head, diving into the car. What am I thinking? Dead
/bodies and Beacon Hills don't go hand and hand.

My hands run through my second-day curls as I stop at a red light a couple miles from school. Waking up this morning had been close to impossible. Thankfully my curls had held, letting me have an extra half hour of sleep. Every minute was appreciated.

The usual hum of my old, but beautiful pick-up truck fills the silence in my car. Isaac is not too chatty today, not that he ever really is. However, his mood is a smidge gloomier than usual. It's possible the pressure of lacrosse try-outs is weighing
/on him.

"You ready for the start of a new school year?" I take a second to glance over at my best friend, Isaac. We were lab partners last year, and despite his best efforts, I basically forced him into the friendship we have now. Isaac is a quiet, reserved lacrosse
/player. He stays out of the spotlight, keeping to himself most of the time. Well, that is when I am not making him put up with me.

"This year won't be any different than the last one. High school is all the same shit stuffed into four miserable years," Isaac says, breaking his quiet streak. His blue eyes don't move from whatever they are looking at, outside of the passenger window.

The light turns green, and I continue on the journey to Beacon Hills High. "You know, I think it's your constant positivity in life that makes my days brighter, Isaac. I mean gosh, you are just a ray of sunshine."

I can practically feel his eyes roll, something I cause him to do often. There are times, I am sure, that he wonders how we get along. Our personalities differ in many ways. To me, it explains how we are so close. We balance each other out. He turns my
/head-in-the-clouds positivity into realistic terms. I shine some light on his dark thoughts. Together we speak fluent sarcasm. We are right for each other. Isaac may never voice the belief, but I know he feels the same.

"If I am lucky, maybe this year I won't get stuck in a class with you," he says with a slightly sarcastic tone.

"You couldn't get that lucky. Even if somehow you manage to not be in one of my classes, we will always see each other at lacrosse practice."

I put the car in park as I find a perfect parking spot. Not too close that I don't get a second to mentally prepare myself for my sophomore year of high school, and not too far that I am tempted to turn back around and drive home. No part of me is nervous;
/I just don't feel like high school is for me. I get good grades and all, but I don't feel the drive to further my education past high school. Test scores are merely numbers written in red ink. Sure they make my dad proud, and the counselor gushes
/to me about the many universities I qualify for early expectance with such high test numbers, but none it makes me feel accomplished.

Isaac stares over at me, waiting for me to make the first move at excitingthe vehicle. His hands are fastened around the strap his backpack, a frown etched on his face. He hasn't stepped foot in the building, but I can tell he's already impatiently
/waiting for the final bell to ring. Now is one of those times he needs me to lighten his mood.

"Isaac Lahey, high school is only a four-year path on the journey to our freedom. We have survived the first year, now let's go do the same with the second."

A small smile forms on his lips when I mention the part about freedom. Isaac wants nothing more than to be free of this little town. I may not understand that want, but I will do everything in my power to make sure one day he gets just that.

noshade=""

Isaac and I part ways when I spot Scott and Stiles on the front steps of the school. Isaac and Stiles aren't exactly friends. Their relationship, if you can say they have one at all, is complicated. Stiles doesn't grasp how I can be friends with someone
/like Isaac and voices this opinion whenever given a chance. He finds it suspicious how Isaac keeps to himself, yet somehow likes to be around me, a pretty outgoing person. Isaac, on the other hand, simply ignores Stiles existence.

"Stella, I still don't trust that kid," Stiles comments when I approach the two, he glares my best friend down until Isaac is no longer in sight.

"Stiles, you wouldn't like the Earth-2 version of you. Or even you from the future, if somehow you get mixed into time traveling," I reply, choosing to pretend my brother isn't killing my best friend in his mind.

"I trust you, and you're the girl version of me." I wave off Stiles's remark and turn my attention to Scott, waiting for him to show us his wound.

Last night, Scott called saying something out of the ordinary had happened to him, he was attacked by an animal. He refused to come over so we could see the bite, telling us we could see it today at school. Naturally, I had a hard time sleeping after
/he shared this tidbit. I wanted to check out the bite as bad as Stiles yearned to find that body last night. The only difference being I am more sensible when it comes to being patient.

"Alright, let's see it!" I observe as Scott lifts up his shirt and removes the gauze he had covering the bite. My lips part in surprise at how big the bite is. This animal did a number on him. The teeth marks take up one whole side of his abdomen, almost.
/When Scott was describing his wound last night, I believed him to be embellishing the truth a wee bit. Apparently not.

"It was too dark to see much, but I'm pretty sure it was a wolf," Scott tells us, not all sounding shaken up by the experience. He marvels at his wound for a second, before hiding back under his dressings.

"A wolf bit you? No, not a chance," Stiles replies, crossing his arms, being the little know-it-all he sometimes is.

"I heard a wolf howling," Scott states.

"No, you didn't."

"What do you mean, no I didn't? How do you know what I heard?" Scott is getting visibly frustrated at Stiles disagreeing with every explanation he makes. Which, I too believe is annoying, but only because Stiles's not explaining why.

"What Stiles is failing to say, is that there haven't been wolves in California for over sixty years. Could it have been a big coyote?" I ask. I don't know the exact statistics for the number of coyotes around, but I am a hundred percent sure it's better
/than the zero amount of wolves.

"Guys, it was a wolf! And if you don't believe me, then you definitely are not going to believe me when I tell you I found the other half of the body."

"Damn it! I should have let Stiles get caught by himself," I huff in disappointment. Now, I may never get the chance to come across half a human body. Lightning doesn't strike in the same place twice. Actually, it can, but that's beside the point.

"Oh, so that you could have gotten bitten too? Yeah, sounds totally worth it," Stiles sneers at me.

"I'm going to have nightmares for a month," Scott continues, ignoring the sister-brother bickering. His eyes closing for a second, his nose scrunching up in disgust.

"That's freaking awesome. This is seriously the best thing that's happened to this town since..." Stiles trails off, his eyes ogling at the beauty that is Lydia Martin. She strides towards the school, radiating confidence. She's a classic, popular girl
/who believes she's better than everyone else. How she fits the archetype of the mean girl so perfectly beats me.

She grazes past us without sparing a single glance in our direction. Stiles's eyes follow her, her strawberry blonde hair blowing over her shoulder from the wind. What he would give for her to notice him, if even for a moment.

"Since...since the birth of Lydia Martin...Hey Lydia, how are you? You look...like you are going to ignore me."

I can't help but laugh at my younger, by five minutes, brother. "Are you ever going to give up on her?"

Stiles has pined over Lydia Martin since the third grade. I don't quite understand it considering no guy has ever held my attention for that long. Yet, somehow my brother is convinced one day his dream girl will notice him. Who knows, life can be funny.

"Did Clark Kent ever give up on Lois Lane?" Stiles responds, using my obsession with superheroes against me.

I push past him, shaking my head. "Don't ever compare yourself to Superman again."

This story idea has been resonating in my mind for so long. I decided it was time to type it out! I messed with some of the details of the story line (as you can tell from Stella being friends with Isaac). More things will be different in the future, but not to the point it strays too far from the plot line. Hope you enjoy reading! XXOO

A/N (2): Revised! I am going back and redoing my early chapters, adding in details, and making the story better. At the end of all the newer chapter, I will write revised :)

Thanks for reading!