FOR ONCE IN HER LIFE, WREN GOT TO SCHOOL EARLY. Stiles has not been answering his phone because he was angry at Scott. The previous night, there had been a parent-teacher conference, and Noah Stilinski got hurt. There was a creature running around and reeking havoc at the school. However, Chris Argent just happened to have a gun in his car and shot the animal to reveal that is was some sort of mountain lion. Stiles was mad because Scott had been skipping school with Allison and was not there to protect his dad.
Scott, on the other hand, had not stopped calling the girl. He was frantic because the Stilinski boy would not talk to him or pick up his phone, so she kind of had to be the messenger between the two boys. She was not sure whose side she was on.
Scott should not have been skipping school. It seemed that Allison was having a bad influence on him, and he had not picked up any of the nine million times that Stiles called him. He really should have been there. However, Stiles should not rely on Scott as the only defense against danger. So, she was Switzerland, and about an hour before she sat down in class, she cut them both off and refused to speak to them until they made up.
She was drumming her fingertips on her desk, waiting for the class to start so that it could be over, and she actually took the time to look around the room for a little bit. She always lived in her little bubble and did not really pay attention to everyone else, but when her eyes landed on a boy in the desk beside her, her face lit up.
"Hey, I know you. You're the guy with the broken arm from the hospital," she pointed out, and the boy looked up, startled. He glanced around to make sure that she was talking to him. He pointed to himself and raised his eyebrows, and she smiled and nodded, assuring him that she was, in fact, speaking to him.
He seemed so totally shocked because despite the fact that he had sat right next to her all year, she had never even looked at him. He asked, "You remember me?"
"Yeah. Good to see you got the treatment you needed," she responded, and she gestured to the cast on his arm that he must have gotten ri ght after she showed him to the Emergency Room. He looked down at it like he had forgotten that it was there. "Ian, right?"
"Isaac," he corrected, but getting his name wrong did not seem to phase her at all. She examined him for a moment, and she was beginning to come to the conclusion that he was kind of really cute, just really quiet and awkward.
"You know, green's my favorite color," she informed him because his cast was green. This seemed to make him happy because he smiled. Upon further examination, she noticed that it was completely blank. She remembered in fourth grade when she broke her leg and got everyone in her grade to sign it. "Do you have any friends?"
This caught him really off guard. "What?"
"There's no signatures," she explained. She hated the sight of a blank cast, so she immediately picked up her bag and placed it on her desk before rummaging through it to find a marker that she could use the sign it.
He seemed so confused and really embarrassed, not wanting to tell her that there was not a single person that he would even ask to sign it, let alone anyone that actually would. This was Wren Carter. She was pretty and perfect and kind of a huge bitch, but she was speaking to him. "Oh, um..."
"Here, I'll sign it," she responded before he could answer. She found a Sharpie and began writing her name before he could even answer. He just watched her in such surprise, not even dreaming about protesting. She signed her name really big, almost covering half of the cast. She put the cap back on the marker and dropped it in her back before looking back up at him. "There you go. That's my name. Wren Carter."
"I know," he replied. Pretty much everyone knew her name. She was not crazy popular at that point, but she used to be. She was almost famous in Beacon Hills.
She nodded before pulling a folder out of her bag. She really needed to do some work, despite the act that she would much rather sit there and do nothing. "Well, it was nice talking to you, Ivan, but I gotta make up some work."
Later that same period, Scott was sitting beside her and Stiles in front of her. None of them had said a word to each other that entire class. The both boys had greeted Wren, but she did not answer, staying true to her promise to ignore both of them. Toward the end of class, the werewolf spoke up.
"Still not talking to me?" he asked both of them but mostly directing it at Stiles. However, all of his words were followed by silence. "Okay, can you at least tell me if your dad's okay? It's just a bruise, right? Some soft tissue damage? Nothin' that big? You know I feel really bad about it, right?" Stiles still said nothing. "Okay. What if I told you that I'm trying to figure this whole thing out, and... that I went to Derek for help?"
"If I was talking to you, I'd say that you're an idiot for trusting im. But, obviously, I'm not talking to you..." he trailed off, but a small smile made its way onto Wren's face because she knew that his curiosity would get the best of him. "What did he say?"
Scott grinned and began filling them in on everything as the bell rang. They made their way to the library and sat down so that he could finish speaking. Stiles' eyes widened at the end. "What? He wants you to tap into your animal side and get angry? All right, well, correct me if I'm wrong, but every time you do that, you try to kill someone, and that someone's usually me."
"I know. That's what he means when he says he doesn't know if he can teach me. I have to be able to control it," Scott informed them.
Wren thought about it for a second, and Derek really was not being helpful. If he was going to get all in their business and have them haul him to the animal clinic and save his life, the least he could do was at least try to do something. "Well, how's he gonna teach you to do that? When are you seeing him again?"
"He told me not to talk about it. Just act normal and get through the day," he answered, but when they both shot him a look, knowing that he was not going to shut up with them, he continued, "He's picking me up at the animal clinic after work."
"After work. All right. Well, that gives me to the end of the school day, then..." Stiles concluded.
Both of his friends frowned and looked extremely confused, not knowing what the hell he was talking about. Wren tilted her head and asked, "To do what?"
"To teach him myself," Stiles responded to her, and she stared at him like he was crazy. How was Stiles going to teach Scott how to control his werewolf side when Stiles himself was not a werewolf? The stilinski turned to the McCall boy and told him in a weird voice, "Your Yoda I will be."
"You are such a nerd," Wren informed him, putting her head in her hands because she really could not believe that she was friends with this loser. How did that even happen?
He patted her on the back as he jumped to his feet, knowing that she was a secret Star Wars fan herself. She had sat and watched every single one of the movies intently, even the freaking prequels. "Don't act like you did not watch all of those movies with me and enjoy them."
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STILES' BIG PLAN WAS TO CHUCK BALLS AT SCOTT IN THE LACROSSE FIELD. Scott just had to stand there and take it, and Wren was really excited. She was sitting on the ground beside them excitedly, enjoying the nice day outside and the view that she was about to get. Stiles had hooked Scott up to a heart monitor and was using Coach's phone â that he stole â to track it.
"All right, well, your heart rate goes up when you go wolf, right? When you're playing lacrosse, when you're with Allison, whenever you get angry," he explained, and Wren was shocked because it was kind of starting to make a lot of sense. Usually Stiles was just blabbering on about random stuff, but this time, maybe he was onto something. "Maybe learning to control it is tied to learning to control your heart rate."
"Like The Incredible Hulk?" Scott asked excitedly.
The Stilnski boy shrugged and nodded slightly, clearly not at enthusiastic about this possibility as his friend was. The Incredible Hulk did kind of destroy everything in his path, so maybe that was not the best thing to aspire to be. "Kind of like The Incredible Hulk, yeah."
"Except, hopefully, you get to keep your pants this time," Wren added. She really did not feel like dealing with a naked Scott running around the school during her free period. It would be quite the experience but definitely not one that she wanted to have at that moment,
Stiles glanced between the two of them because they were wasting time talking about superheroes and pants. They needed to get going if this was going to work. "Would you two shut up and put the strap on? All right. Remember â don't get angry."
"I'm starting to think this was a really bad idea," Scott responded, but it was too late. Stiles had already chucked a ball at him. It hit him in the shoulder, and he did not get a break before the next one came flying at him, square in the chest. "Oh, man. Okay, that one kind of hurt..."
"Quiet. Remember, you're supposed to be thinking about your heart rate, all right? About staying calm," Stiles informed him, but it was kind of really hard to focus when Wren was laughing her ass off on the ground beside them.
Scott nodded and just kept repeating mantras and crap to himself. He was struggling a little bit, and the balls just kept coming, hitting him on the shoulders and legs for the most part. "Stay calm. Staying calm. Staying totally calm. There's no balls flying at my face."
"I wanna try!" Wren shouted excitedly, and she jumped to her feet. Chances were that she was not going to hit him, but throwing the ball at him looked like a lot of fun.
As Stiles handed her the lacrosse stick and a ball, Scott looked up at her with a slightly amused expression, It was clear that he did not think that she was going to be able to hit him. He called over to her, "You know, you should not be excited to hurt your friend."
"Shut up and focus," she yelled back. She got in a stance that was definitely wrong and prepared herself, narrowing her eyes. Stiles giggled a bit because she looked really stupid, but she did not care. She swung and sent the ball flying toward her friend.
It hit him square in the nose.
She gasped and dropped the stick as his head jerked back. His hand flew to his face, and he groaned, putting his free hand up to show them that he needed a minute. She could hear him telling himself to stay calm. She really wanted to laugh, but she felt like it would be really mean at that moment. She laughed anyway.
"Nice, Carter!" someone shouted, and they all turned around to see Coach standing at the edge of the field. He must have been walking by and saw her throw. His eyes flitted over to Stiles who was still standing next to her. "If only Stilinski could aim that well."
Stiles smiled back sarcastically. "Haha! Very funny, Coach!"