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𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐏𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝐄𝐈𝐆𝐇𝐓

𝘩𝘢𝘱𝘱𝘺 𝘥𝘦𝘢𝘵𝘩 𝘥𝘢𝘺

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Meilani sat on the empty desk in the sheriff's station, her legs swinging back and forth as she waited for Rafe to finish up in his office. She could hear Rafe dropping the extra bullets into the clear evidence bag along with a clink and the gun he had just unloaded. They were the only ones in the station since the two night deputies had ran out to go to a call and Noah took Stiles home from the school after everything went down at the high school. 

While Meilani had been nearly dying down in the vault with Kira, Isaac and Malia, Stiles had apparently been close to his own death when their proctor had showed up with a gun in his hand. He knew Stiles was trying to save his friends down in the vault and wanted to stop him before he could, wanting the money that the trio would bring him. Especially Meilani who would bring him a nice twenty-five million for his pocket. Rafe had showed up just as the proctor pressed the barrel of his gun to Stiles' forehead and his blood was what had stained the front of Stiles' stark white t-shirt. 

Meilani didn't want to leave Stiles by himself and wanted more than anything to go to Stiles' house afterwards, but she also knew she needed to be there to get whatever she could out of Rafe. She had promised Stiles she'd meet him at his house once she was done at the station with Rafe and ran off into the car with him while Scott, Malia and Isaac got a ride home from Noah.

"Preliminary notes on firearm discharge incident. Assailant armed with sound-suppressor equipped Walther P88 . . . having heard the perpetrator's threat and countdown, I made visual confirmation of the barrel of the weapon pressed to the potential victim's head. Determining the danger to be imminent, I felt no other choice but to respond with the use of deadly force."

Meilani sighed and tugged a hand through her hair when she heard Rafe click off his voice recorder and place it back on his desk. She slid off the desk when Rafe stepped back out of his office and walked up to him. "Hey, Dad."

"Hey, thanks for waiting, MeMe. I know it's late and you wanna get back to Stiles."

"It's okay, Dad. It's not like I'm going to school tomorrow anyway," Meilani assured her father, smiling softly at him to let him know that it really was okay. He had just saved her boyfriend's life and she couldn't be more grateful for how quickly Rafe had thought on his feet.

"Unfortunately, I'm going to have to drive back to San Francisco tonight. I'll need to do a review at the field office, but I promise I'll be back as soon as I can," Rafe promised Meilani, fixing the silver watch that rested around his wrist. His face fell suddenly and Meilani could smell the sorrow in the air. "I might have to miss yours and Scott's first game of the season."

"It's no big deal, Dad."

Rafe shook his head and frowned at Meilani. "It is to me. I'm going to keep my promises to you this time. What I did, it was necessary. Justifiable. You know that, right?"

Meilani tilted her head as she noticed the nervous stance that seemed to take over Rafe's body. He stared at Meilani as if he were scared of her reaction to him killing someone. "Dad, you saved Stiles' life. Have you done it before?"

"Two other times," Rafe replied quietly, fiddling with the evidence bag he clutched in his hands. "It's not easy, taking a man's life, even someone who forces you to do it."

Meilani scoffed mentally in her head, knowing exactly how it felt. She hadn't actually killed anyone just yet, unless you counted Void after she bit him. However, Meilani hated the thought of killing anyone since she she'd rather save everyone. Her hero complex only grew by the day as she realized more and more of her friends were beginning to get thrown into the line of fire and she hated it. "How do you deal with stuff like that?"

"You look at it logically, without emotion. You compartmentalize," Rafe explained, sighing quietly. "I used to do it by drinking, but then I hurt you and . . . I just can't touch the stuff anymore." He reached out to his only daughter and tugged her gently into his embrace, hugging her closely to him. His cologne that he'd been wearing for as long as Meilani could remember wafted into her nose and she felt herself relax at the familiar scent. She buried her face into her father's chest as he pressed a soft kiss to the top of her head.

"One more thing," Rafe spoke after a brief moment of silence, slowly pulling away from his daughter and keeping one hand on her shoulder. "When I do come back, we have to talk about some stuff. You and your friends, the way you guys handle things, it doesn't seem to faze you like it should. It's like you guys know something I don't. When I come back, I'd like to be in the know."

Meilani blinked in surprise, remembering that Melissa had told Rafe to tell her about the mushrooms. A message that Stiles had brought down to Scott since he was the only one that knew where the pack was during the time of the outbreak. A message that definitely probably confused Rafe beyond belief and and he probably wondered just what the hell was going on. She knew that it was better if Rafe knew what was going on around them so he could be protected better. 

It was always better when they knew.

The next morning, Meilani stood around the small square table in the kitchen with Scott, Stiles, Kira, Isaac and Liam. Three Mac laptops rested on the table in front of Stiles, Liam and Kira as they readied for a new plan that they had created to try and sway the list a little bit. Kira was able to use her Kitsune powers to make Meilani appear dead for a bit. It would be just long enough to make the assassins think Meilani was dead since she had the highest pay out on the list. 

Needless to say, Meilani was about to die and come back to life like she was a zombie.

"Is three going to be enough?" Kira asked, running her fingers along the smooth surface of the closed laptop.

"Depends on how many cameras they have, but I think so," Stiles answered.

"Are we really doing this?" Liam questioned next, looking up at Meilani with big blue eyes that were laced with worry and concern over his alpha. Liam and Isaac had both shot down the idea when Meilani and Stiles told the pack about it, but Liam also didn't want to upset his alpha but going against her wishes. He was just worried about her. "Isn't it dangerous?"

Isaac snorted and crossed his arms across his chest, rolling his eyes to show his obvious distaste for the plan. His raging fear could be felt in the pit of Meilani's stomach and she hated the way he  avoided her eyes, clearly annoyed with her for thinking this was a good idea. "It's incredibly dangerous and idiotic. I, for one, don't think this is a good plan. At all."

"Have you guys done something like this before?" Liam asked.

"Something dangerous or something idiotic?" Stiles replied.

"I think the answer is yes to both," Scott chimed in, grimacing slightly at all the wild plans Stiles and them had come up with since Meilani had been bitten. They definitely did not have a good track record when it came to plans being way more complicated when they needed to be. 

Meilani reached across the table and squeezed Liam's hand reassuringly, offering him a small smile. "You don't have to do this if you don't want to, Li. You can just let us handle this."

"I'm not scared, Meilani," Liam huffed, snatching his hand away from the girl with a small childlike pout.

"And to think I thought you were going to be smart," Isaac quipped at the young beta.

"Isaac."

"What?"

Stiles rolled his eyes and waved his hands before Meilani and Isaac could go any further with their rising spat. "Look, we don't know what's coming for us if we do this, okay? We all understand this?"

Scott chewed on the inside of his lip as he shifted nervously on his feet. "How do we even know something's coming?"

"Because the tape in Garrett's bag said visual confirmation required," Meilani informed her twin.

"Simon said the same thing. He said he couldn't get paid until he proof that you, Kira, Malia and Isaac were dead," Stiles added in, referring to their proctor that had nearly killed him just hours before.

"So the idea is, what if you kill someone on the dead pool, but you can't send the proof?"

"You don't get paid."

"But how does that get us any closer to The Benefactor?" Liam questioned, furrowing his eyebrows in confusion.

Meilani puffed out her cheeks and gestured to herself. "He needs to know if I'm really dead or not, especially with me being so high on the list. So, if he wants visual confirmation then he's just gonna have to come get it himself."

While Scott, Kira and Liam waited downstairs for Mrs. Yukimura to come and help Kira out with the plan, Meilani had gone up to her room to make sure anything was there that Mrs. Yukimura or Kira would need. Part of her was nervous to do this plan because she didn't know what would happen while she was knocked out with a slow heartbeat that couldn't be detected on a heart monitor. However, a bigger part of her knew that she needed to do this if they wanted to draw The Benefactor out and get him. 

At the sound of footsteps approaching behind her, Meilani turned away from where she stood near her dresser to see Isaac stood in her doorway. He didn't look the least bit happy at the moment as he leant against her doorframe, hands fiddling with the ends of his black cardigan. How the boy wasn't hot in the sweaters he wore was beyond Meilani, but she figured it was more of a comfort thing for him after everything he'd been through. Like a constant hug that the boy needed after the abuse his father threw at him for most of his life. 

"Isaac, if you're here to yell at me ━ "

"I'm not, even though I should be," Isaac cut Meilani off, his eyes flickering from the edge of his cardigan and over to Meilani across the room. "You have to know this plan is horrible."

"We've had worse plans before," Meilani defended lamely.

Isaac scoffed softly and pushed off the doorframe, walking further into the room so he was only a few feet away from Meilani. "Oh really? None of these plans involved you almost dying."

"Note the word: almost."

"Lans, I'm serious!" Isaac snapped, throwing his hands in the air with a huff. His annoyance could be smelt strongly in the room and his heart rate spiked with the frustration that coursed through him like a drum. "You realize that we're connected, don't you? That I will literally feel how weak you are like you're actually dead? What happens if you don't wake up? Or what happens if The Benefactor does show up and he realizes you're not actually dead?"

Meilani frowned slightly at Isaac's minor freak out, his voice raising with each word as the pure emotion could be heard in his voice. She didn't even think about the fact that Isaac would feel everything that happened to her in just a few minutes when Mrs. Yukimura arrived through their mate bond. She didn't even think about how weak Isaac would feel once she was under and how he would really feel like she was dead. "Isaac, I ━ "

"Look, I know this plan is important and we need to track The Benefactor down. I know that and I get it. I want this dude dead just as much as everyone, but your stupid boyfriend and twin won't go against you cause they love you too much to upset you. Liam's too much of an innocent puppy to really understand anything just yet. Then there's me who wants you to understand how bad this plan can turn because I love you and I don't want you to die. It'll literally feel like someone ripped out a part of me and I just . . . I don't know. It sounds selfish, but . . ."

Meilani felt her heartstrings tug at Isaac's mini rant, caught off guard at the three heavy words he'd thrown in there. The boy didn't even appear to be sorry or care in the moment that he'd said them to her as his eyes stared pleadingly down at her to not do this. She could even feel the love oozing off him in waves when he looked at her, his eyes softening at just the sight of her alone. It was a feeling that she couldn't return to him, at least . . . not in the romantic kind of way. A part of her ached at the thought that she had to hurt him every day by not sharing those emotions back, no matter how much Isaac assured her that he understood it would always be Stiles in the end. There was a reason that Stiles was her soul mate.

Meilani licked her lips for a moment and stepped closer to Isaac so the tips of their sneakers brushed against each other, reaching out to hold his hands. The instant feeling of calmness took over both of the wolves the seconds their hands linked and Meilani sighed. "I love you, too, even if it's not in the romantic way. I do and I get it. Do you trust me?"

"Always," was Isaac's immediate response, squeezing their girl's hands that he clutched in his.

"Okay, then trust me when I say that I will be fine. I promise. I'll come back."

Isaac eyed Meilani for a long moment as if trying to figure out if she was saying it just to make him feel better or if she actually meant it. He listened closely to her heart beat ━ much like he did every night to make sure she was okay ━ and didn't hear a single skip in her heart beat to show she was lying to him. After a moment, he blew out a heavy breath and tugged her towards him, hugging him closely to her. "I swear, if you die on me, I will bring your ass right back to life so I can kill you myself."

Meilani giggled and wrapped her arms around Isaac's middle, pressing her cheek to his chest. "I don't doubt it for a second"

To say Isaac felt weak would be a total understatement. He felt like he was on his own deathbed and could barely stand up without nearly toppling over because he couldn't hold himself up. Stiles, much to his dismay, had to be the one to carry Isaac through the hospital and into the morgue where Meilani's body laid out on the table that slid out of one the compartments on the wall. It was just the boys, Kira and Mrs. Yukimura in the morgue with Isaac dropped unceremoniously into the chair that Mrs. Yukimura snuck in for Isaac to sit on until his energy slowly recovered.

Meilani looked pale and dead, which Isaac guessed was supposed to be the point. Even though he knew she wasn't actually dead and even felt the slow heart beat of the girl after Kira electrocuted Meilani's heart with her Kitsune powers, he still felt a pang go through his heart at how real it looked. How she actually looked dead and he hated it. Stiles had stood off to Meilani's other side, holding her hand gently beneath the small blanket draped over her naked form and he itched to throw a shirt on over her body so she wouldn't be exposed in front of everyone.

Not like Meilani really knew what was going on.

Melissa walked into the morgue, the sound of the door closing behind her cutting off the silence that lingered over the tense room. She wiped her fingers underneath her eyes the tears she'd shed to make it look like she didn't know any of this was happening. Her eyes fell onto her unconscious daughter and let out a shaky breath as she stood near Meilani's head. "Have I mentioned that I hate this plan? I mean this is pretty significantly terrifying. She looks dead."

"Give me your hand," Mrs. Yukimura instructed Melissa, holding her hand out for the woman to place her hand into. She placed the McCall female's hand over Meilani's heart and retracted her hand. "Now just wait for it."

Melissa breathed out a small laugh when she felt Meilani's heart beneath her chest, brushing her hand over the top of Meilani's hair that fanned out beneath her head. "Is that enough to keep a werewolf alive?"

"Enough for an alpha," Mrs.