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The four knocks that wake Mason up feel like they’re being pounded directly into his skull.
“Mason! Mason, are you up yet?”
Mason blinks sleep out of his eyes, staring blearily up at the ceiling. It’s early enough that there’s no light coming through the windows.
He squirms his arm out of his covers and checks his watch: only six a.m.
It was… three a.m.? When he fell asleep?
Ugh, he is not ready for this.
His eyes slip shut. If he skips a shower, he can probably squeeze in another thirty minutes or so.
Maybe forty-five.
“Maaaaaaaason. I swear, if you don’t answer in the next ten seconds—”
The implications don’t really pierce the fog of his sleep-deprived brain until the door handle turns.
Mason’s eyes fly open.
“Whoa, whoa, do not come in!” He rolls over and starfishes to the floor, his feet still tangled up in his covers. “I’m up, I’m up, just don’t—I’m not—”
“Okay, geez.” The door knob spins to shut as his sister lets go on the other side. “I didn’t know it was personal time or whatever.”
“Very funny,” Mason mutters, struggling to his elbows.
Kesha raps the same irritating four-beat knock against his door.
“I’m not kidding,” she says. “I’m gonna be late for work if you don’t hurry up.”
Right. His car’s in the shop so she’s driving him to school today.
Shit.
Mason army crawls two feet to the right so he can see the base of his door.
The toothpick he’d propped against it is still there.
He drops head down to the carpet with a sigh of relief. “I’ll be down in a minute?”
“You’d better be,” Kesha calls, her voice sounding like she’s already halfway down the stairs.
Mason waits until he hears her footsteps on the landing.
Then he springs to his feet, kicking off the sheets with a bit more squirming.
At least he knows the new sheet-tucking method is as successful at holding him still as promised. Score one for the forums for restless leg syndrome.
Speaking of which.
Mason taps the screen on his watch, swiping over to the sleep monitor.
Minimal activity from 3:07 to 6:00a.m., matching expected sleep patterns.
So far, so good.
He grabs a pair of pants off his dresser and hops towards the bathroom to get ready, scanning his room as he pulls them on.
Toothpick against the closet door: check.
Toothpicks propped up against both windows: check.
Toothpick by the bathroom door: also check.
All toothpicks accounted for.
Everything is exactly as he left it.
Everything is normal.
“Okay,” he mutters, after he finishes brushing his teeth. He grips the sink and looks in the mirror. “Mason Hewitt. Mason Hewitt. Youngest of seven, top of my class, inner circle in Scott’s pack. That’s me.”
He watches carefully as his lips move, articulating all the words he’s saying out loud. There’s no visible delay.
He leans closer towards the mirror. He pokes at his face and watches the skin spring back.
The bags under his eyes look pretty deep.
Are they too deep for how much sleep he got? What if he hadn’t actually slept—
“Mason!”
Mason snaps back from the mirror.
“Coming!” he shouts, scrambling out of his room and into the hallway. He pulls his shirt over his head as he vaults down the stairs.
Kesha’s waiting for him at the door, his backpack in one hand and a cereal bar in the other.
“There’s an apple in the front pocket,” she says, thrusting both items at his chest. “When Mom asks if I gave you a balanced breakfast, the answer is yes. What’s with all the boxes?”
“School project,” Mason says, snatching the bar and tossing the backpack onto his shoulder. He looks suspiciously at the front pocket. “You didn’t give me one of the yellow ones, right?”
“Honey crisp. You’re the worst, but I’m not an animal.”
Mason freezes.
What’s he call it?
The Beast.
He checks his hands. He doesn’t really know what he’s looking for.
Claws?
Smoke?
He just sees skin.
His sister clears her throat. “Cat got your tongue?”
He plasters on his most winning smile and holds up his nails. “I just didn’t have time to apply clear coat this morning. Too obvious?”
The worry lines flatten out of Kesha’s brow, and she rolls her eyes and hip checks him out the door. “Corey won’t even notice, dweeb. Now get in the car. I’ve got a presentation you are not making me late for.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it,” he agrees, shuffling towards the Camaro.
He checks his reflection in the passenger window while he waits for her to unlock the car.
His earrings sparkle on his human ears, his teeth flash white in his human mouth. Then he gets in with human legs and straps his seatbelt across his human chest.
Mason Hewitt. He is Mason Hewitt.
He watches his reflection in the side-view mirror all the way to school.
“You got me a… watch?” Liam asks.
“Fitbit,” Mason says, distractedly shoving the box at him while he pulls the other four out of his bag.
He’d found out about them during his third late night research binge in a row, and after some pestering with his dad, and they’d finally arrived yesterday. They’re perfect—if Sebastien takes over in the middle of the night, not only will he be able to check it the next morning, but Liam will also get a report sent straight to his phone.
Automatic accountability partner, and all without making his best friend worry.
“It’s called a Flex,” he says, tapping on his own watch to reveal the time. “They’re not technically on the market yet, but my dad has connections.”
“Oh.” Liam turns the box over in his hands, looking quizzical. “Cool, I guess.”
He doesn’t seem excited.
Mason really needs him to be excited.
“Very cool,” he says, hoping his enthusiasm is contagious. “The company thinks they’re going to be, like, everywhere once they come out. It’s the next step up in fitness technology—it tracks steps and whatever, but also other stuff like how well you’re sleeping. I mean, you gotta wear it at night for that, but it’s barely even noticeable. I used mine last night and didn’t feel a thing.”
“Uh—okay, but—”
“Don’t swim with it, though. They haven’t figured out waterproofing yet,” Mason continues, pushing his juice to the far end of the table. After a moment’s contemplation, he nudges Liam’s away, too. “Anyway, once it’s powered on it syncs with your phone. It shows all of your stats from the week so you can compare—”
Mason hesitates.
He’d pulled his phone out to demonstrate, but the loading image on his screen is still spinning.
Liam looks at him expectantly.
“Um—sorry, it doesn’t normally… do this,” Mason mutters, mentally cursing the school’s terrible cell reception.
“Maybe we just—”
“Ah! There we go,” Mason says as the data finally populates. “So you see, here’s the information about my heart rate and stuff, and over here…”
The screen shows he’s taken three thousand, two hundred and six steps so far today.
That’s four hundred and seven more than he’d made by this time yesterday, according to the step counter on his phone.
His heart rate speeds up on the screen.
Liam nudges his shoulder.
Mason tenses.
Liam frowns at him. “Are… you okay?”
“Yeah,” he chuckles. A sound that’s definitely normal for him to make and not at all stressed. “Never better. Why, um. Why wouldn’t I be?”
“Well,” Liam says, snatching a fry off his plate, “you bought like a dozen of these things—”
“Half dozen, and they’re not all for me—just the black one,” Mason interrupts. “Obviously you have the green one, the white one is Hayden’s, Corey gets gray, the red I figured could be Brett’s—”
“You got Brett one?”
“—and Lori gets the yellow,” Mason finishes. “I thought I’d get one for Sydney, but they’re all linked up. Kinda hard to explain why Scott’s got you and Hayden running thirty miles an hour in the Preserve.”
Liam squints at him. “We don’t go that fast.”
“It is definitely that fast.”
Liam scoffs, but he does seem pleased by the suggestion.
For a half second Mason thinks the diversion is successful, but then Liam clears his throat. “Okay, whatever. It’s still workout stuff, and you said the only way you were doing ‘nonmandatory exercise’ was if Coach permanently banned us from wearing shirts.”
He had said that. Right at the beginning of the semester, before…
He clears his throat, too. “I just think it would improve everyone’s performance.”
“Seriously, dude?”
“It would! Way less wind resistance. It’s physics.”
“Not chemistry?”
“…Some of that, too, yeah. Maybe.”
Liam frowns. “Uh-huh. Okay, well that still doesn’t explain why we need these things. Especially since you hate running. And walking. And moving in general.”
“What? I can’t just get my friends something nice?” he asks. “It’s—you know. It’s basically James Bond, classified spy stuff. Like, you can actually find out if you’re running thirty miles an hour with one of these. I… thought you’d like it.”
Liam levels Mason with a look. “Come on, man.”
He picks at his salad, the lettuce all wilted under the dressing.
He feels his enthusiasm wilting with it.
This was a bad idea.
“You know what, never mind,” he says, swiping the boxes one by one into the front pouch of his backpack. “This was stupid, I was—I can return them after—”
Liam’s hand latches onto Mason’s arm, startling him.
“Is this about…” he pauses. “You know. The thing?”
Mason starts to make another purposefully naive response, but Liam just nods to something past Mason’s shoulder.
Mason turns.
The tables on the far side of the room have been lined up, cake and cookies and whatever else gets fixed for baking sales strewn across them. It’d been set up by the student council yesterday.
It’s a fundraiser for repairing the damages to the school.
Mason stares at the giant posterboard leaning against the front table, pictures of the broken sign, torn up field, and clawed-up hallways plastered all over. He closes his eyes and waits for flashes of his own hands wrapping around the half-ton sign and hurling it into the school.
Nothing.
Mason jerks out of Liam’s grip.
It’s irritating that he’s only able to because Liam lets him.
“I said forget it,” he says, rising to his feet. “I’m gonna be late to class, so—”
“Next period isn’t for another ten minutes,” Liam says. “If you give me a sec, I can—”
“Yeah well, I hate moving, remember?” Mason snaps. He pulls the straps of his backpack taut. “It takes me like twice as long to get there. Wouldn’t want to slow you down.”
Hurt flashes across Liam’s face.
That’s all it takes for Mason to deflate. “I’m sorry, man. I didn’t mean to—”
“No, it’s—it’s my bad,” Liam interrupts, surprising Mason into silence. “I’ve done way worse. Um. Thanks for the watch. You can show me how to set it up later?”
Mason shuffles his feet. It would be smart to just drop it.
Four hundred and seven extra steps.
“Yeah. Yeah, I guess.”
According to his Fitbit, Mason’s heart rate spikes by about ten beats per minute as soon as the last bell rings, and doesn’t go back down until he settles in on the bleachers.
He’d expected it, though.
It’s easier to relax during school hours: from six a.m. to three p.m., he has a perfect external record of what he’s done throughout the day.
For the rest of the time, he’s on his own.
Hence the toothpicks and Fitbits.
Mason bites on his pencil and stares down at his notes. The wind keeps trying to blow his papers off the bleachers, but it’s a small price to pay to make sure he’s visible.
Mason offers Liam a friendly wave when he runs out onto the field, and Liam lights up with an ear-splitting grin.
Showing up at Liam’s practice also doubles as a decent apology.
Liam points to his wrist, and Mason can just barely pick out the green band wrapped around it.
Also an apology.
The smile Mason returns is genuine.
Then Liam jogs past the deep divots in the right hand side of the field, and his smile falters.
He can’t tell if the dirt looks fresher than it had yesterday.
Mason opens the calculator app.
According to the data he’s collected so far—his phone counted his steps before he got his Fitbit, though not as accurately—he has a standard deviation of about fifteen hundred steps per day. That’s nearly the equivalent of a full mile.
…A lot can happen in a mile.
Mason stares uncomfortably down at the numbers.
A shadow falls over his notebook, blocking out the sun.
Mason tenses.
It’s just Sydney.
“Did you see the chemistry assignment yet?” she asks, dropping down on the bleachers next to him.
He tries to breathe a sigh of relief without looking like he’s breathing a sigh of relief. “Uh, no, not yet—that bad?”
“It’s going to be hell,” Sydney says. “I mean, maybe not for you, but I swear she doesn’t even know half the stuff she quizzes us on.”
Mason’s watch buzzes on his wrist, and he hums in distracted agreement as he checks the notification.
His heart rate has gone up another five beats.
Liam said werewolf transformations could be affected by elevated heart rates.
He focuses on breathing a little slower.
“So what’re you working on?” Sydney asks, squinting at the numbers scrawled over his notebook.
“Oh—um,” he inches the book a little farther away, “just P.E. stuff. For Coach.”
“Since when are you in P.E.?”
“Um.” Sydney pulls her own homework out of her bag, and Mason takes advantage of her distraction to move his books to the opposite side. “Well. You how know Coach is.”
Sydney laughs at that, so Mason tries to join her with an awkward chuckle.
Both of them sound kind of brittle.
Sydney’s been acting weird the last couple weeks, too.
Before Mason can parse what that means, shouts break out on the field.
“You did that on purpose!”
He feels his heart spike this time, just seconds before his watch begins to vibrate.
Sydney flies to her feet beside him, chemistry book falling to the grass.
He expects to see blood when he looks at the field, but there’s no monsters to be found.
Just Scott curled on the ground, one arm wrapped around his chest.
Liam’s roaring in Nolan’s face.
Mason scrambles up. “What is it? What happened?”
“Stray ball,” Sydney says. Her eyes are glued to the field. “Got Scott right in the chest. Hard.”
Mason’s fingers clench.
It’s too far away to pick out whatever Nolan says in response to Liam’s accusation, but Liam’s voice carries just fine.
“That’s bullshit. You were staring right at him when you—”
“Liam.”
Mason doesn’t know how he hears Scott’s voice when it has to have been way quieter than Nolan’s.
Maybe it’s an Alpha thing.
Whatever it is, it works on Liam, too, as he immediately runs to Scott’s side. He stops a couple feet away, looking like he’s not sure if he’s allowed to come closer.
Mason understands the hesitation. He can’t remember the Beast, but he has plenty of nightmare material for everything else that happened.
Scott’s made it to his knees now, though he’s still gasping.
“Get your rubbernecking asses out of my way,” Coach shouts, pelting across the field and waving the players away.
Mason watches as he bends down next to Scott, one arm on his shoulder. He can’t hear any of the conversation this time.
“Liam’s right,” Sydney says.
Mason startles, having almost forgotten she was still there.
“The ball,” she clarifies, when Mason looks at her. She doesn’t turn away from the field. “Nolan threw it at him on purpose.”
Mason frowns. He doesn’t know Nolan well, but he’s always seemed too… well, nervous, to be cruel. “Why would—”
“I don’t know why Scott’s so shaken.”
Mason sputters. “Excuse me?”
“Oh, I didn’t mean—um—” Sydney turns bright red, dropping down to pick her textbook off the grass. “I just meant, we’ve seen him hit way worse before. In lacrosse! Hit worse in lacrosse. Where we’d see him get hit.”
Mason stares at her.
She coughs and tucks her hair behind her ear.
The strangest thing is that she’s not wrong.
“Well… he’s got asthma,” Mason says. “It looks like it knocked the wind out of him. Maybe it just freaked him out a little?”
“…Yeah. Yeah, I guess.”
Sydney sounds about as sure as he feels.
Coach’s whistle cuts through the air, followed by various threats about lollygagging.
Mason loses sight of Scott in the hubbub.
He lowers himself down on the bleachers.
Time to steer to safer topics. “So that chemistry assignment—”
“Have you ever seen something… weird?”
Mason freezes.
The buzzing of his watch notifications starts up again.
“Uh—yeah. All the time,” he stammers. “One semester, one of my brothers refused to eat anything but peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for breakfast, and—”
“No, I mean like,” Sydney pauses, shifting her eyes to the field. Her voice lowers. “Weird.”
Mason’s mouth turns dry.
His watch won’t stop vibrating. Going off every time his heart rate increases, which is apparently all the time.
Sydney must take his silence as agreement, because she leans in closer. “I just—you’ve seen it, right? Sometimes things… happen. At our school.”
He hadn’t been told how to handle this.
How had Liam handled this?
Maybe he’s overreacting.
He doesn’t even know what she might be talking about.
Too many gaps.
“Mason?”
His pencil slips through his fingers and tumbles to the page. His heart thunders in his ears.
Mason.
He slams his notebook shut and shoves it in his backpack. “I gotta go.”
“What? But you just—”
“Yeah, I—sorry,” Mason stammers. “I just remembered, I have a thing I have to—I gotta—”
He stumbles down the bleachers, his watch pulsing on his wrist.
Sydney might say something else. Maybe she stands. Follows.
He doesn’t know. He doesn’t turn around. Doesn’t look back at the torn up field, at the rows of grass he’d destroyed, at the girl he might have tried to kill.
He just runs.
The door swings shut behind him with a loud creak as he tumbles into the boys’ locker room.
He makes it a few more steps—just to the benches—before folding over, hands braced against his knees. His pants are loud and ragged as he tries to recover his breath. Sydney can’t get to him here, so he should be safe. No prying eyes, no questions he can’t answer, no—
No one at all.
The stillness of the locker room hits him.
No one’s watching him. Anything could happen.
He swipes at his watch face, finger shaking. He can’t remember what his step counter had been at, the last time he’d checked.
Had he written it down? How many steps were between here and the bleachers?
In the corner of the watch, his heart rate flashes red in warning.
167bpm.
That’s way too high. There’s no way he put in that much exertion.
Transformation imminent.
Oh, god.
It had to have happened again.
It is happening again.
Black spots blur in his vision—or maybe it’s smoke?
He pitches sideways, shoulder crashing into one of the lockers.
They hadn’t stopped Sebastien. He changed because of his heart rate, and now he’s going to change again, and he shouldn’t have freaked out, should’ve stayed where someone could keep an eye on him—or maybe he did stay and—
“Mason?”
“Oh god!”
He jerks away from the locker.
A very sweaty, very confused looking Scott is standing at the end of the row of lockers.
“Um,” he says, the towel draped around his neck held tight in both hands, “hi?”
Impulsively, Mason glances down at his watch.
His pulse is still racing.
“How’d you get here?” he demands. Scott had still been on the field last he’d seen him.
“Walked?” Confusion is plain in Scott’s voice. “Same as I always do.”
Mason doesn’t want confusion. He wants certainty.
“Yeah?” he huffs and cranes his neck, waiting for the rest of the team to show up behind him. “So where’s everyone else? Stiles?”
“Practice is only five minutes in. They’ll be out there for at least another couple hours—and Stiles is doing some paperwork with his dad,” Scott says. He rubs at his ear with the towel. “Why? Did you need him?”
Five minutes. Okay. Five minutes is probably—that’s about as long as he’d been at the bleachers with Sydney, plus the amount of time it would’ve taken to run here. That’s good. He’s good.
He checks his watch just to be sure.
His heart rate’s lowering.
“Mason?” Scott prods. “You okay?”
Mason stumbles for an adequate excuse.
He really needs to get better at this. “Yeah, I was just—I hadn’t realized anyone else was down here.”
“Oh.” Scott drops his towel back against his shoulder, looking pensive and something else Mason can’t quite gauge. “Okay. Do you… want me to leave?”
“No!”
Scott’s eyebrows arch up.
“I just—I mean, you know.” Mason coughs into his fist. “You’re the athlete, so if anyone should be leaving, it’s probably me… Do you want me to leave?”
“Not really?”
It’s a relief, considering Mason hadn’t actually had a plan for what he’d do if Scott had said yes.
Unfortunately, he also hadn’t had a plan for Scott saying no.
“Cool, cool,” he says, slumping back against the locker and trying to project indifference. “Then I… won’t.”
There’s another beat of awkward silence as Scott stares at him.
Mason just stares back, for lack of anything better to do.
Then Scott clears his throat. “That’s kind of, uh. My locker?”
Mason springs away from it fast enough to impress Coach. “Oh shit, I am so sorry—”
“Dude, it’s fine,” Scott says, brushing past him. He opens the locker and rummages around for a moment, then pulls his towel off his neck and switches it out for a fresh one.
Mason checks his watch while Scott’s back is turned.
Only five more steps to the count since he’d last seen it. That should be covered by how many he took to get away from the locker.
Probably.
He looks at his watch again, then at the floor.
Five steps isn’t that big of a deal.
Except five steps by the Beast is basically worth eighteen steps of his.
He looks at the floor and starts calculating the distance just to be sure.
“You never did say what brought you down here,” Scott says.
Mason looks up to find Scott staring at him again, a change of clothes now stacked in his hands.
The question had disturbed his visualization of walking to the locker.
He’s not sure if the total distance only covers four steps instead of five.
“Corey’s not at practice either,” Scott continues, nudging the locker shut with his shoulder.
“He’s got an extra credit thing for Econ,” Mason mutters.
One, two, three, four—but if he were going faster, it might—
“Mason,” Scott says.
He breathes through his nose, the stress of counting and lying too much to handle at once. “I'm hiding.”
“You’re what?”
“Um—nothing serious,” Mason hastens to add, suddenly realizing how that sounds. “Sydney was just asking about—you know—and I thought since it’s the boys’ locker room, she couldn’t follow me here? Not that she was following me! I mean, she might have been, but I… It’s not a problem. No need to worry.”
Scott stares at him a moment longer.
Maybe he’s picking up on something from his scent or his heart rate or the resonance of his atoms or something.
Mason still has a lot of questions about how werewolves work.
Then Scott sets his clothes on the bench and sits down just a few feet from Mason, his brow twisted in concern. “Are you worried?”
Mason looks sharply at the locker.
He can’t tell Scott he’s freaking out over one step.
“No. Why would I—no. It’s totally fine.”
Scott hums.
The disbelief is palpable, even though he doesn’t press.
Scott props his foot up on his knee and starts unlacing his sneakers. “You can have that back now, by the way.”
“What?”
“The locker,” Scott says, nodding towards it.
Mason’s face flushes.
He hates how much he does want it, if only because it would mean he could physically count the number of steps it takes.
Unfortunately that’s not something a sane person can admit to. “Nah, I’m good.”
He remembers too late that werewolves can hear lies.
He needs a distraction.
“What about you? You shouldn’t be here either, right?”
Scott’s fingers pause mid-unlacing.
It’s only then that he notices they’re trembling.
“I took a hit,” Scott says. After a tense moment, he goes back to unlacing his shoe. “My head wasn’t in the game, so Coach pulled me out.”
“Coach?” Mason repeats. “Coach was cool with Nathan playing with a grade two concussion, why would he take you out for that? You—”
“I asked him to.”
Mason’s startled into silence.
Maybe something else had happened.
Like a Beast.
“Are you hurt?” he asks, stomach turning. “Did something—”
“No. It’s…” Scott trails off, one hand moving to rub against his chest. “It was fine, it just felt a lot like—other things. I couldn’t breathe.”
Oh. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay. I mean, it’s not, but…” Scott takes in a shaky breath. “That’s why I’m here. Deaton said… sometimes things leave scars. Even when they’re not visible.”
Scott doesn’t look at him as he says it, but somehow Mason feels the weight of his stare.
The fans whir overhead, casting rotating shadows across the room.
He gives up and shuffles back to the locker, eyes on his Fitbit as he does.
It’s five steps. Both manually and digitally.
It doesn’t make him feel better.
“Nice watch,” Scott says.
Mason looks up, face heating at being caught.
“It’s like Liam’s, right?” Scott asks.
“Uh—yeah. I, uh. I got us both Fitbits.”
“Cool. My mom used one for awhile—some deal with our health insurance,” Scott says, tucking his socks in his shoes before setting them aside. “Hers was just a clip on, though.”
“Huh.”
Mason hadn’t wanted that version—he’d been worried it’d be too obvious if he had to unclip it all the time to check his steps.
Not that he was hiding the watch all that well.
Scott clears his throat. “So what’s yours for?”
“Mine? Oh, just… you know… tracking things.”
“Yourself, mostly,” Scott agrees.
It’s you.
His watch vibrates for the first time since they’d started talking.
Transformation.
“Uh,” he stammers.
Where did you go?
His back smashes into the locker.
I can feel it. It’s in my skull.
He reaches for the back of his neck.
Mason.
“Mason?”
His eyes snap up.
Scott’s crept closer, hands held palms out.
His voice is soft, but just like on the field, Mason doesn’t have any trouble hearing it. “You with me?”
“I don’t know if I’m me.”
The words fall past Mason’s lips faster than he can consider stopping them.
Scott backs off, pulling his legs up onto the bench to sit cross-legged, facing Mason.
He doesn’t look as confused as Mason would’ve expected.
“Okay,” Scott says gently. “Why wouldn’t you be?”
Mason wrings his hands together, just barely resisting the urge to look at his watch. After a moment, he eases away from the locker and sits down on the bench.
“You know how—when you’re in a dream—time doesn’t… work right?” he tries.
Scott’s brow furrows for a moment. Then it smooths back out, his spine growing straighter. “Like you’re in your bedroom one second, and then the next, you’re in the middle of the woods.”
“Yeah, like that,” Mason says. He twists the watch around on his wrist. “When I was—the Beast—that night at the school, I remember being on the bus with Corey, and then I was just… I was standing in the middle of the parking lot. Everything had changed, but I didn’t think anything was weird. And even when I remember it now—I kind of still don’t? I know it’s not logically possible, but my brain wants to just accept it. So I feel like if I don’t have some sort of—like a record, besides just me, I might not ever know if I’m… me.”
It sounds ridiculous to his own ears, but Scott just nods. “So that’s what the watches are for? Recording where you are?”
“Yeah. And my heart rate, and sleeping and… anything else I can think of. Look, I know it’s stupid, and Sebastien’s gone and so is the Beast, but I—I just—”
“Mason,” Scott interrupts, his voice still gentle, “no one’s going to judge you for wanting a little extra reassurance.”
Mason feels a little hysterical. “What if it’s, like—a lot of assurance.”
“Like what?”
“Like how I kinda want to ask you if I turned into the Beast in the last ten seconds,” Mason admits, all in a rush. “Which I know sounds completely crazy, but—”
“I woke up in the middle of the woods.”
Mason stops.
Scott’s staring down at his palms, thumbs stroking the back of his hands.
“You—what?” he asks.
“Peter—the guy that bit me—mind control was kind of his thing, too,” Scott says. “It, uh. It usually happened at night. Sometimes I’d wake up in a different place, but other times I’d just wake up in bed. I didn’t realize anything had happened until I got to school the next morning and saw what we’d done.”
“Oh.” Mason says. His heart beats a little slower in his chest. “I—didn’t know.”
“Most people don’t. I guess we’ve kind of got a club going—you, me, Stiles, Jackson, Lydia…” Scott pauses. His lips pressing tightly together. “Kira.”
Mason looks down at his hands.
He’s seen Mr. Yukimura in the hallways a few times, but he’s never quite sure what he’s supposed to say.
“But… she’s getting help,” Scott says. “Same as all of us. I guess what I’m trying to say is, no one’s been through exactly what you have. But we also… we get it. And we’d like to get it more, if you’ll let us. Maybe even more than a watch can.”
Mason ducks his head at that.
“And if it helps, you smell right.”
Mason’s head jerks back up. “That’s a thing?”
“I didn’t really have anything to compare it to before,” Scott says. “I didn’t know you very well. But the Beast—it was like your scent had oil over it, masking the you underneath. Now that’s gone.”
“Oh,” Mason says.
He waits for the words to settle into him, calming his anxiety.
It doesn’t take it all away, but it helps.
“Thanks.”
“Anytime,” Scott says, resting his hand on Mason’s shoulder. “I mean it. And I can teach Liam the difference, too. I’m… guessing he doesn’t know?”
Mason shakes his head. “Or Corey. Or Hayden. Or… anyone.”
“Okay. Well, I’m sure they’d love to help,” Scott says, glancing down at the watch, “but maybe letting them know you need help is better than tricking them into it.”
“Probably,” Mason acknowledges, a little sheepish.
“Okay.” Scott claps him gently on the shoulder, then stands and shucks off his shirt. “You gonna be good if I shower?”
Mason hesitates.
It’s just a shower. It’ll probably take ten minutes. Fifteen, tops.
His watch vibrates.
Scott glances at it.
Right. Werewolf hearing.
“Sorry,” Mason mutters. “I know it’s not—I just don’t know.”
Scott considers him for a long moment. “Remember how I said I took myself off the field?”
Mason glances at Scott’s chest before darting away. “Um. Yeah.”
“Sometimes you push through it,” Scott says. “And sometimes you take the breaks you need.”
“But how long is this gonna keep happening?” Mason asks. “I don’t—I know everything I’m doing isn’t a permanent solution.”
“Well, hopefully it isn’t a permanent problem,” Scott says. “But for now, at least, my shower can wait if you really need someone right now.”
Mason considers it, staring down at his hands.
He takes a deep breath. “Ten minutes?”
“I can get it done in seven,” Scott smiles. “And I’ll be able to hear you the whole time if you need it.”
“Both creepy and useful,” Mason says.
Scott laughs, tossing his sweaty shirt into his gym bag. “So I’m told.”
Mason settles back on the bench, closing his eyes as he focuses on the unevenness of the wood and the solidness of the floor.
He can do this.
Then he opens his eyes, remembering how pale and sweaty Scott had looked when he’d first walked in. The shower had been meant as his cool down.
“What about you?” he asks, and Scott turns on his heel. “Are you gonna be okay?”
“Oh—yeah, thanks. It’s nothing a little rest and some time won’t fix,” Scott says. “And probably a snack, but that’ll have to wait.”
“Oh, actually—” Mason brightens. “I have an apple I’m not gonna eat, if you want it?”
Tension Mason hadn’t even realized was there disappears from Scott’s posture. “That would be great, if you don’t mind. But, uh—it’s not one of the Red Delicious ones, is it?”
Mason grins wider as he pulls the apple out of the front pouch.
“Nah,” he says, tossing it over. “I’m not an animal.”