How hard could it be? • LM / SS

Chapter 103

                   "Money, money, money.
                           Must be funny."

Max stumbled into the back of Scott when his cousin stopped walking out of nowhere, making him lose his balance on the steps up to school. He was about to complain when he noticed Malia had been the one to originally stop moving. After phoning Lydia, who was at a gas station with Kira and had found a worker's slashed up body in the bathroom, they knew where Kate was heading too. She had no control over her newfound abilities, which meant she needed Derek for one thing and one thing only; the triskele. "Did you catch a scent?"

"It's the same one," Malia whispered, trying to not have a sensory overload. Sure, she had been a coyote for eight full years, but that was different. Now she was a human who, like Kate, didn't exactly know what she was doing. It was honestly one of the most overwhelming things in the world. "The same one as Mexico."

Max pulled out a shotgun from his belt, making sure there was the correct amount of bullets in it. He wasn't willing to take any chances, not when he witnessed first hand how deep the creatures had cut his best friend. They didn't know what type of a creature it was, but it appeared to have no bother hurting people, so that wasn't reassuring in the slightest.

"One of them came after us in the church ruins," Scott added, confused as to why they had been followed all the way from Mexico to California.

"While another one attacked us on the road," Max noted, casting a glance over his shoulder. God, he was too tired to feel this paranoid.

Scott hesitated, trying to reassure the others while also being realistic. Although, that wasn't exactly an easy task to incorporate both things into. "They could have been brought here by Kate."

A low growl echoed and flowed with the night breeze, the force of the sound almost making it feel like the ground was shaking.

Peter groaned, shaking his head. "I've heard that sound before. Did it have an animal skull? A human wearing a skull over it's face?"

"I think so," Malia didn't sound very confident with her reply, but it didn't matter when the sound grew closer, only a few feet away from them.

Max tightened his hold on his gun, slowly backing away and up the stairs. Standing tall in the middle of an archway was exactly what Peter had just described. The darkness of the night made the creature's shadow stand out more, making it more noticeable with the street lamps that had just been turned on.

"Are you crazy?" Peter hissed, grabbing a hold of Malia's jacket when she snarled, ready to pounce at the trespasser. He technically had a good idea of the answer; considering she was his daughter, there was a high likelihood that she was crazy. "They're berserkers. Given that there's only one, we have a chance to survive."

Before the others even had a chance to process what he had said, he had legged it up the rest of the steps, leaving them to fend for themselves. The berserker— whatever the hell that was meant to be— stalked towards them, gathering more speed and gaining more ground as it sprinted. Water splashed behind the teenagers as they jumped through puddles, literally running for their lives. Although, that wasn't something they could class as a new experience.

Max threw his hand out to stop Scott and Malia, cursing under his breath as they changed directions. A different berserker was blocking their path, forcing them to bump into objects while trying to keep it in view. A growl almost burst their eardrums from their left, the original one slithering from around the wall.

"It's the other one, they're both here. What do we do?" Malia hissed, almost tripping over her own feet and using Max to steady herself. They were being cornered and that was probably the berserker's plan from the start.