It wasn't often that Anna was hit with the feeling of surprise, if surprise was even enough of a word to explain it. That feeling at the bottom of your stomach and the tips of your brain when someone does or says something that makes absolutely no sense, yet speaks the most truth of all. It feels like when you find the final piece to a section of a puzzle you were trying to finish, and just as you're about to click it in to place, it suddenly didn't fit. So then you take new pieces and try again, and each piece seems like they're going to be the one, but they never are, and none of them felt as right as the first one, so you can't help but think to yourself, why isn't it working? What am I doing wrong?

So it's not exactly surprise that Anna felt, maybe closer to shock, but that was the only way to describe it. I was looking for you. When the words came out of Isaac's mouth, they sounded so simply casual and normal Anna thought they would make sense, but every time she tried to fit together an explanation, it just never clicked. What does that even mean?

Anna furrowed her eyebrows, mouth parting with a small huff of confusion. "What?"

"I was looking for you. Honestly, I don't really think I can put it into words, or make it make sense but I just had this gut feeling you were in trouble, and it wouldn't go away until I found you." Isaac explained the best he could, but that was only the most basic and easy way he could put it without going into detail. It was like a nauseating feeling that added a bunch of weight onto his stomach and pulled at his heart, warning him that something was wrong. Isaac had no idea how he could tell it was related to Anna, but something about it just told him, even if he couldn't place his finger onto how. It was the first time he'd ever experienced that, but it was so distinct and explicit he knew that he'd be able to tell it apart from any other thing he'd ever feel in his life, and as worrisome and dangerous as it seemed, he was kind of grateful for it, considering it'd helped him find Anna and bring her to safety.

And give him the chance to take her out to lunch and talk to her again.

"Oh." Anna's lips stayed slightly parted, eyes blinking a numerous amount of times as she practically annotated his words, highlighting bits and pieces and pulling away little parts to dig just a touch more at them. She understood him a little more now, but if possible, that information just left her hungry to know more.

"You went out there in the storm... to look for me?" Anna suddenly asked. Her pitch was higher, her mouth twitching at the corners.

"What? Oh. Yeah, yeah, I did." Isaac's cheeks reddened ever so slightly. "Of course I did."

"Hm." The witch beside him hummed. A smile was strewn across her face shamelessly, and despite the disability to move any part of her body, she was actually happy in that moment. Showing up to the game solved basically all of her problems- regarding Isaac, anyway. Maybe she had just proved herself wrong before. Her and Isaac didn't change, at all. With all of the things going on around them, of course it wasn't going to be easy, especially giving that Isaac had the bite now and Anna just got back to Beacon Hills. All they really needed all along was to just talk, to figure themselves out. Of course, that didn't mean the road was now completely paved and everything was smooth and perfect, but it was better. Better was certainly enough for her.

"Hey, are able to move your toes yet?" Isaac piped up from beside her. His voice would've made Anna jump had she been able to move.

"No, not really. Why, can you?" The brunette girl replied. All of her body was still paralyzed, the buzzing had faded to a very slight tickle, but her limbs still refused to budge.

"Yeah, just a little bit, but it's there. I think soon I'll be strong enough to stand, then maybe I can get us out of here and see what's going on." The wolf said.

"Yeah, okay." Anna agreed before pausing. She opened inhaled slightly before narrowing her eyes. "You're here with Derek, aren't you? I already saw Boyd and Erica at the game. There's just no way that all three of you are here and he's not."

The blue eyed girl could hear the nervous and deep breath from right next to her, Isaac made a little noise, almost like he was about to say something and then just decided to stop. The witch waited patiently as Isaac decided what answer to provide her with, it wasn't like either of them could really go anywhere.

"Yes... he's here. We all are." He said cautiously, Isaac didn't want to lie to Anna or cause anymore problems that shouldn't even exist anymore, but he also wasn't sure how much his alpha would be comfortable with him telling her.

"Mhm." Anna's eyes squinted as she encouraged him on. So she was definitely right about Derek, but the werewolf was just feeding her information she already knew. She'd just told him she saw his other pack mates, so the fillers he was providing weren't really doing the job he'd wanted. Besides, it was kind of hard to dodge your way around any question that girl threw at you, she just wouldn't give up that easy.

"Derek just wanted to get ahold of Stiles so he could get more information on what that thing that just attacked us was, though I'm not really sure he knew that it was here tonight..." Isaac continued.

"Wait, you're saying Derek is here, like, in the school right now?" Anna asked quickly.

"Well, he should be. And by now probably with Stiles and either Boyd or Erica, depending on who came in after him and if that thing found them yet." The brown haired boy said with a stiff nod, his body was beginning to flow with feeling again, each muscle beginning to soften up like your fingers after you've come in from the cold.

"Oh my God, I totally forgot about Stiles coming into the school already. Do you think Derek would protect him if that creature attacked them?" Anna asked worriedly.

Isaac's face instantly scrunched a little and he lifted his shoulders meekly. "What? I have no idea, don't ask me."

"Why wouldn't I ask you? You're his beta." Anna scoffed back.

"Yeah, but I don't even know if he likes Stiles, he could just leave him for dead and run for all I know." Isaac said back. It was true, Derek's actions in situations like those could really alter depending on the person, but he also wasn't too fond of reassuring Anna that the alpha would sweep him off his feet bridal style and go away to hide with him. He wasn't exactly jealous of Scott and Stiles, but he didn't get to spend anytime with three of them alone, so he also didn't have any knowledge as to how close his own girlfriend was with either of them.

Instantly, his face began to heat up and his body stiffened, just like it had the last twenty minutes he was sitting there. Maybe when there was a bloodthirsty, supernatural, reptilian killer on the loose in the school he was in wasn't the best time to ponder over his relationship status, but now that the thought scrambled it's way into his brain, he couldn't keep it out. Maybe becoming a werewolf didn't exactly help with all sorts of strength.

Was Anna still his girlfriend? When she left last year, they never really broke up, they just didn't keep any contact. It was too risky- on both ends. That didn't stop the girl from being the only thing on the forefront of his mind 24/7, though. He thought about her all the time, she took up every corner of his mind, she was the first thing he thought of when he went to sleep and the first thing he thought of when he woke up. His whole life practically existed around the thought of her and her return. It was his only motive to get through each day, also considering the one thing he had left was his dad, and that wasn't even a positive thing.

But even though she was back now, everything had so drastically changed that the mere thought of living their lives how they used to was just a joke to laugh at. They obviously weren't just friends now, but they also didn't seem to be dating. Like, at all. Before Isaac had the chance to open his mouth and touch base on the subject, Anna spoke first.

"Don't you think it's strange?" She spoke randomly out of the blue. In response to Isaac's sassy remark just a few moments before, she simply scoffed and rolled her eyes, deciding not to say anymore, and neither of them had until just now.

"What?" Isaac completely turned his head to gaze at her now, and swallowed away the lump that formed in his throat as he stared at the small grin growing on her face.

"How we only seem to be together now when some dangerous supernatural phenomenon is going on?" Anna said with a light amusement hinting at her tone.

"That's not the only time we're together." Isaac said, trying to lift the mood just a bit. He thought back to their little lunch date that morning, and that didn't have any dangerous supernatural phenomenons associated with it, although, it did kind of start with one in a way.

"Feels like it." Anna sighed, resting her gaze ahead again. She listened as Isaac grunted next to her, struggling to stand up. She turned her head to stare as he successfully got to his knees and held onto the desk he was previously perched against for support. "Hey, be careful."

"Yep... Got it." The wolf breathed out, catching his breath as he finally stood on his own two feet. "Can you move now?"

"Barely. I'm not as strong as you are, my body won't be able to fight the venom off as quickly as yours did." Anna looked up at him, face twisting the tiniest bit in frustration as she tried to move herself off the ground.

Isaac leaned his hip against the desk to stay grounded, reaching down to secure his hands under her arms and pull her up. Anna would be lying if she said the feeling of the warmth of his thumbs touching the warm skin of her collarbones didn't make her stomach flip. And she would definitely be lying if she said the redness on her cheeks was from just a little too much blush.

"Here, I got you. Do you think its safe enough to go see what's happening yet?" The brunette boy whispered in a hushed tone. His face was now extremely close to Anna's, so close that she could feel the warmth of his breath against her lips, so close that'd it'd be so easy for him to just lean a little closer and-

"Yeah. Yeah, maybe. Lets go check it out." She whispered back, eyes flittering away from his.

Isaac placed one of her hands on his shoulder and his arm around her hips, trying to keep their balance completely even and steady considering his height in proportion to hers. He carefully and slowly navigated the two of them towards the broken doorway and into the empty and deadly silent hall. Holding up Anna's weight wasn't really hard for him, he hadn't had a problem with it before the bite, and the extra strength definitely made it even more of a simple task for him, but moving his own limbs that were still in the process of thawing plus basically deadweight did indeed slow them down a bit. Not that he minded really, despite the frustration he wasn't exactly excited to possibly come face to face with that lizard thing again, especially in their conditions.

"Were there really no spells or something you could've cast to give us a little help here?" Isaac forced out as they rounded a corner.

"Nope, not without knowing what kind of venom that thing put into our systems, or how it even worked, for that matter. I'm going to have to do some research on that." Anna replied casually, not really putting much effort into their little journey.

"Good to know."

Isaac suddenly paused, coming to very sudden halt. His eyes squinted as he looked around, his breathing becoming very light.

"What? Isaac, what is it? Do you hear it coming back again?" Anna asked, deathly quiet.

The wolf shook his head, averting his gaze downwards to look at her. "No, it's footsteps, someone's running in this direction."

For what was probably the millionth time that night, Anna's eyebrows furrowed and her lips parted as she shared a glance with Isaac. Almost faster than the blue eyed boy had stopped beforehand, the squeaky sounds of shoes sliding against the floors met both of their ears. The two supernaturals looked up, coming face to face with none other than Scott McCall.

"What are you guys doing here? Are you two okay?" He instantly called out, running up to meet them.

"Yeah, we're fine." Anna nodded. "But that thing, the same one Stiles saw at the car place, it's here, and it attacked us before moving somewhere else. We have no clue where it went."

"How long ago was that?" Scott's face creased with worry, head whipping around as if doing so would tell him where the reptilian monster went.

"Not so recent, like forty minutes, maybe?" Isaac said. "Why, what are you doing here, Scott?"

"Stiles called me, he said it attacked him and Derek, they need help." The other beta said anxiously. Anna didn't need any werewolf powers to read the worry and desperation apparent on his softened features. She looked up at Isaac, who barely glanced down at her before replying to Scott once again.

"Do you need us to come with you? We can help you out, we already faced it once." He said.

"No, that's just another reason you guys should go somewhere safe for now, wait for us outside. I'll go get them. If I'm not back in at least an hour, then you come back. You guys got it?" Scott went over quickly.

Isaac and Anna nodded, watching as Scott let the tiniest yet fakest smile cross his lips before running off again behind them. Anna turned her head around, sighing as she tried to straighten herself up a bit more comfortably.

"Did you ever tell me how you managed to even get out of the house without Tal knowing yesterday?" Isaac broke the settling silence.

Anna laughed. "You know, I actually did have a good idea for that one. I'll tell you, but only once we successfully get outside without being mauled to death by a lizard, first."

"So, you enchanted Tutu to act like a human... and make it sound like you were in your room?" Isaac tried to confirm as they leaned against a random car in the parking lot.

"Precisely." Anna nodded. "But, Tallula comes in to say goodnight every night, so when I didn't reply to her knock and she still heard Tutu moving around she already knew I left."

Isaac whistled. "Busted."

Anna only laughed, running her hands along her arms for warmth as they stood in the cold night air. She was only a few seconds away from pulling her phone out to text either Scott or Stiles when they came out through the doors ahead of where she and Isaac were, Derek and Erica right at their heels. The young witch instantly stiffened uncomfortably at the sight of them, her hand instinctively falling to the handle of her knife hidden in her belt loop.

"Hey," Isaac lowered his voice as he looked down at her, his hand brushing against her arm. "You're okay, right?"

Anna's head turned around to stare at him, her fingers reluctantly falling limp against her blade and eventually hanging at her side. She offered him a weak smile and a small 'yeah' before turning her head back around to watch the new group of people join them.

"The beastiary was on a drive that Allison's grandfather had." Scott said as soon as he was in earshot to the both of them. "We have it right here."

The raven haired boy placed a computer onto the hood of the car Isaac and Anna were waiting near as he revealed the supernatural book to them. The screen of the device was bright, having multiple pages and an endless amount of words organized into paragraphs and sections. There was only one problem though.

"Yeah, but we don't understand anything on the damn thing. Is that even a language?" Stiles flicked his hand towards the screen with a sassy tone and a hint of distaste.

Anna squinted her eyes as she stepped closer, leaning down to read it at a better angle, pupils dancing across the screen as she soaked up little bits and pieces of the given information across the screen.

"It's Latin." She confirmed as she straightened upwards again. All three heads looked at her in surprise.

"What- how the hell do you know that? You speak Latin?" Stiles stuttered as he stuck his head out across Scott's body to get closer to the witch.

"Nearly all spell books and witchcraft material is written in it." She remarked knowingly.

"So you can read this and tell us what that thing is?" Scott questioned her earnestly. His expression resembled that of desperation, his eyebrows tilted upwards in hope and face scrunched up fervently.

"It's called the kanima." A deeper voice interrupted their conversation. Everyone turned around, facing Derek and Erica alongside him, a pair Anna almost forgot was even there. Once again, she immediately found herself on guard.

"You knew the whole time." Stiles deadpanned, arms flopping at his sides as his breath created a cloud in the air. His voice had a strain on it, like he was using the muscles in his throat to choke back his evident anger.

Derek shook his head. "No. Only when it was confused by its own reflection."

"It doesn't know what it is." Scott tried to sum up, looking towards the ground with a far away expression.

"Or who." Isaac said. He stood right behind Anna, and she assumed he was so close to her to try and keep everyone and everything civilized just in case, not wanting anything to get messy again. Especially after the night they had.

A sigh came from Anna's left, and she looked over at Stiles' face. "Well, what else do you know?"

"Just stories, rumors." Derek said almost shamefully, defeated. An idea sparked in Anna's mind, but not one that she liked. The young witch was gifted, thankfully, to hatch insanely smart plans and ideas off the bat regularly. And although this case was an extremely mild one, it still came to her fast. She could potentially partner up with Derek, with her witchcraft books and ability to read the preferred supernatural language, she could combine what new information she'd soon gather with the alpha's prior knowledge. Together, they could find out everything necessary to put a stop to the kanima and save many others from being killed. The thing is, she didn't want to. 

Anna wouldn't consider herself hard to deal or work with, she was just stubborn- sometimes too much for her own good. This trait could play in for many different situations mind that. Her family, and basically all of her old coven, didn't play very 'nice' with the Hales. There was too much history to get into as of now, but it'd be safe to assume Anna would never like Derek Hale, and she would certainly never work with him.

"But it's like us?" Scott broke the brunette girl's train of thought.

"It's a shapeshifter, yes." The alpha confirmed, but his face showed his concern. "But it's- it's not right, it's like a..."

"Abomination." Anna finished for him. Her eyebrows were knitted together, a finger pressed against her lips as she thought carefully. Her gaze, originally pointed downwards deep in introspection, crawled upwards to Derek's face. He stared at her as if surprised she was talking to him, or with him, for that matter, but ended up nodding with thinned lips.

Derek's body turned around, his feet beginning to move forwards as he walked away, Erica following in stride, not having said a word the whole time.

"Derek," Scott called out as the pair in front of him paused to look back. "We need to work together on this. Maybe even tell the Argents."

Anna's stomach dropped at the wolf next to her even suggesting working with Derek, and her neck nearly snapped as she whipped her head around to look at him when he brought up the Argents' name. She trusted Allison, at least for now, but that was only because Scott and Stiles did, and she'd even proved herself. But the rest of her family? Anna didn't need to have been around for long to know that was a bad idea, and just like the Hales and many other families that have been associated with the supernatural for generations, she was familiar with them. She and her ex-coven hadn't had any specific crossovers with the Argents as far as she knew, but she'd heard of what they did, what their reputation was.

"Are you crazy?" She asked Scott.

"You trust them?" Derek backed her up.

"Nobody trusts anyone." Scott's voice was menacingly deep, outrage practically radiating off him in waves. Anna regarded him with a strange look before she looked up at Isaac almost worriedly, who was matching her facial expressions perfectly.

"That's the problem." Scott continued, his tone getting more heated as he got louder. "While we're here arguing about who's on what side, there's something scarier, stronger, and faster than any of us, and it's killing people! And we still don't even know anything about it!"

Anna bit her lip and looked at the ground. Scott was right. Not even just right, everything he was saying was exactly true, there was no arguing against it. If they continued to act childish and fight each other and not the real enemy, the only people they were truly hurting were those being  picked off the playing board because they couldn't get their acts together. They weren't being heroes by trying to be better than each other.

Although Scott didn't know it, he had just favorited a decision for Anna.

"I know one thing." Derek said with a clenched jaw. He turned around again, this time not looking back. "When I find it, I'm gonna kill it."

a/n - i'm coming out of hiding for the second time... this is my formal apology LOL. i might start making chapters a little shorter like this one so they're easier to read and write, but idk yet, do u guys have a preference? also thanks sm for the support on tiktok, this book got nearly two thousand more views in the past few months so i'm so grateful!! next update I SWEAR will come out quicker have a sweet night :))