𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐏𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝐓𝐖𝐎

𝘔𝘐𝘚𝘚𝘐𝘕𝘎 𝘗𝘜𝘡𝘡𝘓𝘌 𝘗𝘐𝘌𝘊𝘌

( SEASON 6 EPISODE 2 )

The sound of Meilani's alarm the next morning startled her awake with a loud groan, her hand haphazardly shooting out from her blankets to slam her hand down onto the annoying buzzing machine. She huffed as she flopped back onto her bed, trying to allow her eyes to adjust the blinding sunlight that filtered in through her window and she slowly pushed herself into a sitting position. Her hair was a mess of curls on her head and she rubbed at her tired eyes to try and rid the sleep from them. 

An empty sort of ache blossomed in her chest when her hand subconsciously reached out next to her, but was met with just her bedding. She dropped her other hand from her face, furrowing her eyebrows as she tried to put together why she had reached out and was met an empty space. However, her thoughts were cut off when her door squeaked open and her eyes met with Isaac's who leant against her doorframe, arms crossed across his toned chest. 

"I have to say, you look more and more beautiful every morning," Isaac mused, pushing off the doorframe and waltzing further into Meilani's room. He crawled up the end of Meilani's bed and pressed his lips softly to hers, a fire igniting between them as it always had thanks to their mate bond. Every movement of each other's lips and every breath was felt as their bodies focused on each and every single moment.

"I have to say, you're asking for it more and more every morning when you use that teasing tone," Meilani mumbled against his lips, slowly pulling back from him and meeting his blue eyes with a flash of a small smile. Though, it didn't last long as her mind whirred back to her searching of something just moments before Isaac showed up. She felt like she was missing something or forgetting to do something, but couldn't quite put her finger on what it is.

"Baby," Isaac said softly, tucking a stray curled piece of hair away from Meilani's face as he noticed her distant look. His eyebrows cinched with worry as he could feel her heavy confusion weigh on his chest. "What's wrong?"

Meilani chewed the inside of her lip, knowing she couldn't lie to Isaac. Not when they were connected and he could feel everything she felt, hear almost every thought she had. Though, Isaac typically tried to stray from her thoughts to give her the space she deserved. It was her own head after all. He had no reason to poke around in her head, regardless of him being her boyfriend or not. "I — I, um . . . I don't know. I feel like I'm forgetting something, but I don't know what it is. I was supposed to do something but . . . my mind draws a blank when I try to remember what it is."

Isaac hummed and tilted his head, trying to figure out what Meilani could be forgetting. "Well, you did all your homework last night, right? 'Cause we did that together with Lydia and Malia. Scott hasn't needed anything lately and there's been nothing else mentioned for The Ghost Riders yet that we can work with."

Meilani rolled her eyes fondly and laughed softly. "You always say Liam's my son with the most disgusted look on your face. He's a good kid, Isaac, and besides . . . he's not my son."

"I don't say it with disgust," Isaac defended, sitting back against his heels with a huff. "However, the kid's a little runt and I need to knock him around sometimes. Get him ready for when we leave for college in the fall."

"Hm, must have been thinking of someone else," Meilani mumbled to herself, falling silent for a moment as she knew that someone in the pack hated it when people mentioned Liam as Meilani's son. For some reason, she just couldn't place her finger on who it was. She could have sworn it was Isaac. "But anyways, Liam will be fine. I trust him."

"That makes one of us, baby," Isaac teased, leaning forward to brush his lips against hers again. "Now get that cute little butt ready for school. I think Scott wanted to leave in twenty minutes, pick up stuff from the cafe' on the way to school. Your mom didn't get to go grocery shopping yet so we'd starve."

"A tragedy that would be compared to everything else," Meilani mused right back, giggling when Isaac playfully pushed her head before he stood to his feet again. She fiddled with the moon necklace around her neck, something she found herself doing in deep thought. A necklace she couldn't remember where she'd gotten it from in the first place. "Hey, Isaac?"

Isaac froze in the doorway of Meilani's room and turned back around with raised eyebrows. "Yeah, babe?"

"Did — you got this for me, right?" Meilani asked, swaying the necklace between her fingers to show it was what she was referring to.

Isaac pursed his lips in thought for a moment, his brain trying to come up with when he would have given it to her. However, he had also come up with a blank. "Maybe for our anniversary."

Meilani nodded silently and allowed Isaac to leave her room after that, who had bumped into Scott on the way out a broad grin on his face. She shook her head as Isaac heckled Scott into paying for breakfast for them that morning since he'd left him and Meilani high and dry the night before at the school to go be with Kira. Scott's retort back was muffled as Isaac no doubt playfully fought around with him. 

Maybe Isaac was right. It could have been anniversary gift, the necklace's small diamonds shimmering in the sun's rays that filtered into the room still. However, there was only one problem with that.

Meilani couldn't even remember when her or Isaac's anniversary even was.

The school day had gone along as usual with the added hole in Meilani's chest that was like a never ending void. She knew that she was forgetting something and it was bothering her that she couldn't even figure out what it was. In every class, she'd handed in the homework that had been placed neatly into her binder so homework wasn't something she'd been missing. It wasn't anyone of the pack's birthdays and she'd even double checked her phone calendar app to be sure of that. 

Meilani was relieved slightly when Lydia had mentioned that she'd been feeling weird all morning as well. Lydia chalked it up to her Banshee abilities, but nothing stood out to her yet on what her Banshee abilities were trying to tell her. Sometimes it took a while for Lydia to put things together so Meilani wondered if maybe there was a supernatural thing going on that she was supposed to check out and just forgot. With everything that had happened as of late, Meilani's brain was so jumbled she was surprised she could even walk in a straight line at this point.

The day slowly drifted into night and Meilani found herself on the field with Liam and Isaac. Meilani had promised Liam they could meet up and go over some lacrosse drills with their practice having ended early thanks to Coach Finstock getting so angered over the team, he'd thrown a fit. Especially with Meilani deciding to step down as team captain, Liam really wanted to take his alpha's place. Make her proud in more ways than just out in the supernatural world and helping her. He wanted to show her that he could handle everything when she left for college. That she could trust him.

A chilling breeze caused Meilani's veins to freeze for a brief moment, a shiver taking over her form. She twirled her lacrosse stick around in her hands as she glanced over her shoulder as a sound followed after it. However, the sound didn't continue nor did the random millisecond breeze that sent a bad feeling to Meilani's gut. "Did you guys feel that?"

"Feel what, Lan?" Liam questioned, fiddling with his lacrosse stick and tightening up the ropes while Isaac sat on the grass next to Liam. His hands were perched behind him and his legs were spread a bit, feet swaying side to side.

When Meilani was only met with the sound of crickets nearby and nothing else, Meilani hummed to herself and slowly turned back to her two boys behind her. "I, um . . . I thought I heard something. Just forget it, alright? Let's keep goin'."

"Or we could call it," Liam suggested tiredly, catching the lacrosse ball that Meilani threw in his direction with her stick. They had been practicing for the past two hours or so and Meilani showed no sign of slowing down. Sure, Liam had the adrenaline and stamina of a werewolf, but he definitely could not match up to that of Meilani's. She looked like she could keep going for another two hours while Liam was sure he'd need a breather in about two minutes.

"Weakling," Isaac mocked, grunting quietly when Liam whipped his stick and cracked Isaac across the ribs. He rubbed at the sore spot on his chest with a small groan and he glared up at Liam. "Listen here you little runt — "

"Boys!" Meilani huffed, cutting off whatever argument was about to ensue between Isaac and Liam as the two glowered at each other. "Liam, we have to work on your back shots, okay? They . . . they could be better."

Liam froze and turned his head to look back at his alpha with a baffled expression. "Lan, what are you talkin' about? My back shots are better than yours!"

"What? No they're —"

Meilani cut off Liam picked up a lacrosse ball and shot it in her direction, shooting the ball from behind him and right over Meilani's shoulder and into the net. He did it another two times with perfect form and precision, lowering the stick once again when he raised his eyebrows in a challenging matter for Meilani to try and test his skills again. "Huh, I must have been thinkin' of someone else."

Liam snorted and leant on his stick with a teasing, cocky grin. "Yeah, maybe someone else who should be captain?"

"Take the position from my cold, dead hands," Meilani shot back with a mirroring smirk.

"He almost did a few months ago," Isaac mumbled, earning himself another whack from the lacrosse stick in Liam's hands. "Okay, dude, seriously hit me again and I'm gonna drown your ass in wolfs bane!"

"That's stupid because then you'd only be hurting yourself in return. You're a werewolf, too, Lahey!"

Meilani exhaled heavily and threw her head back, squeezing her eyes shut as she grumbled about having to deal with children for pack members. The lights around the field began to shut off around them at that moment and Meilani opened her eyes to darkness. She noticed the expression of relief that crossed Liam's features at the lights going off, meaning they'd have to vacate the field. With a shake of her head, Meilani flashed Liam her red alpha eyes to show him that they'd be using their wolf vision to finish off their extra practice time.

Without a complaint — mostly because Liam was scared of Meilani even though he'd never say it out loud — Liam shifted his eyes to yellow and continued with the drill he and Meilani had been doing a few minutes before. They had moved back into a swift flow, Liam tossing lacrosse balls at Meilani while Meilani tried to help him work on the power behind his shot. Power he had to learn to control since Meilani tried to get Liam to not use his werewolf side out on the field. However, that didn't last much longer when Liam slowly lowered his lacrosse stick, gaze focused to the school.

"Li, what is it?" Meilani asked, stepping closer to him while Isaac hopped to his feet.

"Something's happening to Mason," was all Liam said before he threw his stick to the ground and took off for the school. 

Meilani and Isaac exchanged a look before they moved after Liam, the three bursting into the side entrance of the school and right into the library. A sharp yell was heard and Mason materialized from the shadows with a fire extinguisher raised high in his hands, his boyfriend Corey right behind him. 

When Mason realized it was just Meilani, Isaac and Liam he sighed in relief and dropped his arms. "They were here. The Ghost Riders."

"What? Here? Now?" Meilani breathed, eyes wide as she had thought they were gone and were leaving Beacon Hills alone.

"I thought they left when the storm left," Liam voiced Meilani's thoughts out loud, eyes bouncing between Corey and Mason who both looked shaken up.

"I guess not because two fo them were right up there," Mason explained, pointing to the second floor balcony of the library. "Corey and I didn't see when they came in. We only saw them when we turned invisible."

Liam's jaw ticked and his fierce blue eyes snapped over to Corey, anger wafting off Liam in waves. "You brought him into this?!"

Mason quickly stepped in front of Corey and pressed his hands to Liam's shoulders when the boy tried to take a step towards Corey who stepped back. "Liam, hey, he was just trying to protect me."

Corey nodded frantically to show that Mason wasn't lying. Even though Isaac, Meilani and Liam could all hear his heartbeat had stayed it's normal rate. "Uh, they didn't seem to care about Mason or I. They, they walked right by us. Uh . . . they just jumped down and left after that."

"Wait, that's it? They didn't do anything else?" Isaac inquired, crossing his arms as his tone was laced with confusion. Why would the Ghost Riders just show up only to leave Mason and Corey alone? Wasn't their whole purpose to rid people from towns?

"Yeah."

"They didn't take someone? There was nobody else in here?" Meilani asked next.

Corey glanced to Mason, but the dark skinned boy merely shook his head. They both appeared lost over the whole thing as well even though they had witnessed everything. Meilani tilted her head, noticing they had both worn the same distant look she had that morning when she tried to figure out what she was forgetting. "Um, no, no. It was just us."

Meilani ran her hand through her hair with a soft exhale, mind working at warped speed to try and piece together what could be happening. The Ghost Riders only made her more and more confused by the minute.

"Lani, please tell me you see what I see! He's here. He can see me!"

Meilani shot up in her bed, panting heavily as the boy's voice echoed in her head. She strained her ears to try and hear the voice, trying to figure out why the voice sounded familiar but she couldn't figure out whose voice it was. That same aching hole in her chest was back and it felt like it grown in size. She groaned to herself, rubbing her hands over face in frustration as the feeling only felt like a huge weight on her. A weight she didn't need on top of the weight of the world she already carried.

With a glance to her alarm clock, Meilani saw it was only four AM and she still had another two hours to sleep. She could hear Scott and Isaac's snores from her floor. The two had their cheeks pressed to their opened textbooks as the trio had sat together to study that night, all of them falling asleep. A burning sensation erupted in the back of Meilani's skull as she's sure that she had this same thing happen to her once before, but with her in Isaac's room last year during Halloween.

"Get your pretty little ass down here right now. We have a job to do!"

That same voice from her dream bounced around in her skull once again, causing her to rub at her aching head. Her brain tried to piece together what she was missing out on as the voice sounded like she'd heard before. Maybe she'd just heard it in passing and these ( memories ? ) were just words she'd heard in when walking in school or town. Though, one of them had mentioned her nickname. Albeit, it was one that no one really used besides Melissa, but still. 

What was Meilani missing?

Deciding to splash some water on her face and get back to sleep somehow, Meilani pushed herself off from her bed and padded towards her bathroom. A stinging pain in the bottom of her foot halted her movements and she hissed, lifting her foot to see a small tack poking out. She sighed as she plucked the tack out of her skin and noticed a photo laying face down on her hardwood floor near her desk. Picking up the photo she realized it was the one that had been taken at school the other day of her, Malia, Isaac and Scott. However, there was something odd about it.

Upon closer inspection, Meilani noticed that her head tilted to the side as if moved in the direction of somehow. Though, no one was besides her besides Lydia who was a whole person length away from her. Her arm was even bent and fingers curled as if wrapped around someone's shoulder. Meilani rubbed at her eyes, thinking maybe that her sleep heavy eyes were playing tricks on her, but the photo remained the same. It was like there was something missing from this photo.

Or someone.

Finstock's whistle pierced through Meilani's skull the next morning and she flinched slightly at the sound, never finding it in herself to get used to shrill sound of the whistle. A toy that Finstock loved to use a little too much during practices, especially on one like today where Finstock would be looking out for the next captain to lead the team with Meilani wanting to focus more on passing her senior year and graduating. She wasn't dropping the team, but just the big title that had been held over her head since her sophomore year. She still laughed about Jackson Whittemore's face when he had found out that Meilani and him would be co-captains. 

Still probably one of the proudest moments of her life, thank you very much.

"That's how it's done!" Finstock praised one of the sophomore boys who had just finished up a shooting drill. He pat the boy on the chest with a beaming grin and nudged Meilani as the boy passed them by. "That is captain material!"

"You're late!" Meilani scolded Liam who had ran over to Meilani and Finstock at that exact moment. The beta shot Finstock and Meilani both a sheepish smile, juggling with the pile of his equipment in his hands.

"Which makes you not captain material!"

Meilani shook her head and pressed a finger to Coach's shoulder to get him to look at her. "No, Coach, Liam is captain material. He's . . . "

Finstock blew the whistle before Meilani could get any further, waving his hands for