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I.
Allison had just turned twelve when she catches sight of her mark. It’s in the mist of a poolside barbecue in late July and a sudden scathing, almost sizzling pain lacerating into her side, underneath her periwinkle blue one-piece bathing suit.
She screams—her footing slips and she goes under the water—a piercing scream erupting into bubbles that shoot up to the air like the tiny needles digging in her side.
The arm of her mother wraps under her and Allison’s chin breaks the surface. The patio concrete around the pool is bumpy and overheating. The chlorine makes her eyes sting, as well as whatever open gash this is on her hipbone now.
Later, her mother takes her aside and explains it’s the same sting she got from the mark resulting on top of her wrist, which led her to her husband, Allison’s father.
Allison has a tiny sun etched in the skin on her hip. A spiral encircled by an octad of triangles.
She exhales an unsteady breath.
This is a gift, she’s told. Destiny. A guide.
Her mother smiles.
Allison doesn’t.
II.
His name is Scott and Allison meets him on her first day of school in the new district. And he’s soft, reassuring, and bounteous. And she can’t deny that there’s something about the way he always smiles—always, but it’s pleasuring—and it doesn’t even matter that he’s that clumsy sometimes on the lacrosse field because he’s lax, he’s compassionate, and altruistic.
And when Allison is around him, she can’t help but feel a little lurch in her stomach as well, a tiny tug at the strings in her chest and she’ll have to bite back a bashful smile that strains at the corners of her mouth.
It’s classic, usual, and Allison would roll her eyes because she doesn’t want one of those cliché romances.
But when he smiles, she grows weak in the knees.
They go on a few dates, however, eventually, and they take it slow and try not to make as many mistakes as those typical reckless teenagers on every other overused plot line on mainstream television.
But Allison can’t ignore the mercurial haze that comes over her when his hands finds her waist…and then his mouth on her lips and…
God.
But he’s just as any other teen boyfriend she’s had, and there was no way in Hell that she was—that she could be—
Allison sighs; he chuckles.
Her mark buzzes under the fabric of her shirts, pulling, drawing, telling.
This can’t be real—it just can’t.
III.
And it isn’t, not quite.
The day Allison finds out her boyfriend is a goddamn werewolf is around the time her life changes forever. And it isn’t even done in the more graceful way possible either. It was when her father attempted to pin Scott between the hood of his Sudan and a school bus, and out of surprise and fear, Scott shifted.
But then there’s a thing called an anchor, something that is used to keep you grounded. In the case of the supernatural, it’s used by those and can concentrate on to keep themselves human.
And at this point, Allison needs an anchor.
When she finds out Scott McCall is a werewolf, three things happen in those following months that have subjectively ruined her life:
One, her family. The drama—the secrets, good god. There’s this secret family business of being creature hunters, and her best friend, Lydia, is likely loosing her mind.
Two, Scott McCall himself. That puppy-dog eyed, heart-stopping, knees-to-jelly, trouble-magnet. And that he’s a werewolf.
And three, she realizes that Scott is her soulmate.
It’s one night on the roof-ledge outside her bedroom window. He had pulled back the pants leg of his jeans and she had rolled up the side of her shirt—and the connection was instantaneous, both staring at the other because this is just so implausible, kismet, and what are the odds? Never has she thought that her mother would actually be right about the loss of all those other boyfriends would be ineffectual—that this mark situation was real, that it could be true.
When Scott pulled his jeans back and shown her his mark, she knew right away. They both knew. And then it’s silence and cheeky, cheesy and shy smiles that are exchanged. There was no way this could possibly get any better, because here she was, finally happy, finally relieved!
But here comes the rest of that awful list.
Four, Allison’s mother dies.
Five, Allison has to put herself on hold, and her love-life on pause. This wasn’t an easy or even desired decision but her grandfather had become suspicious. And after finding out her own bloodstained lineage, it had seemed the best decision, in hind-sight.
Six, and then—
And then—
Allison Argent is seventeen years old when she gets another mark.
A separate mark.
A new mark.
It’s a tiny lightning bolt stamped on the right side of her back, near her hipbone and edging her side.
IV.
Her aunt had been one of the first to break down the significance of a mate mark—yes, technically Allison’s mother, Victoria, beat Aunt Kate to it, but Victoria hadn’t really explained it. Not really.
Kate had a mark that was blackened and scabbed over, having been burned so many times it was now indistinguishable. Allison hadn’t had two marks at the time, however. So, instead, Allison goes to Lydia, the next best person she could think of.
Lydia looks at her friend with wide hazel eyes when Allison shows them. Lydia tells that she’s never read or seen someone with more than one mark before.
Allison holds her breath.
“I don’t mean it’s not common—because I’m sure it is. It’s just I’ve never seen it…besides those three couples where I used to live when I was really little.” And then there’s a subtle smirk that soon grows full force. And she makes a comment about love times two and Allison rolls her eyes.
V.
When Allison meets the owner of her second mark, she and Scott had been on a sort of break, and the gang had been discussing topics of demonic possession and death.
Not the most romantic way to have met.
She’s a new student in Scott and Stiles’ history class, Allison’s first soulmate tells the table at a pause of conversation during lunch break. The looks of confusion are all justified—but for Allison…
The girl is undeniably cute, and there’s something about her that practically screams at Allison to get up and grab her by the waist and just—
Allison looks up at this girl and her pulse is erratic. She looks to the painted wooden tabletop, her newer mark vibrating, pulsing louder than the other and she knows. She avoids Scott’s glance her way. He undoubtfully picks it up with his enhanced hearing.
Allison sucks in her lips before asking the new girl about the progression of Bardo, her voice quivering just the slightest.
And she can practically feel Scott and this girl, Kira’s gazes burning into her flesh. The group doesn’t stay together for much longer, unfortunately, as the school bell rings and classes resume. But before they leave, Kira makes sure to go straight to Allison and introduce herself.
Kira’s a shy girl, Allison can tell, and her smile is just a little too lopsided for Allison’s liking and her handshake a little too firm. It leaves a twist in both’s guts. But Allison tells that she is with Isaac now after she and Scott…broke up, I guess. Kira tries but doesn’t mask her disappointment very well.
Allison isn’t too surprised to see that Kira has gravitated towards Scott later.
VI.
Less than two months later Scott pulls Allison aside, and she’s so dazed that she has to ask him to repeat himself.
“Uh,” his tongue darts out. “I had said that there’s been a situation that came up about our scars. And I know you’re technically with Isaac now, but…”
Her eyes grow wide, and skepticism about his having faded or scabbed over—"is that even a thing if the person isn’t dead?!“—all spill from her mouth.
Scott calls her. “No, no! Yours is…it’s still there…” He looks a little forlorn. “But that’s not it. Not exactly.” And then she tells him to speak his mind, and so he does: “tell me if I’m crazy, but do you think it’s possible for a person to have more than one mark?”
At first Allison wants to tell him that it was a ridiculous question. And then the excitement builds, bubbling up her chest, and for a split second she wants to wrap him in her arms and embrace him and of course it’s not and wants to show him and the whole entire school because there’s no way she could be this lucky—
She doesn’t of course.
Without saying much else, Allison holds up her shirt to reveal that she now has two marks etched in her pale skin. She keeps her face stone and steady but when when she looks up, Scott’s is one large, dopey smile. He has the same lightening bolt received five months ago, he tells. She asks him to prove it, more for her sake than his. He loosens the buttons of his shirt to show the mark directly under his right collarbone.
“Um…”
Needless to say, Kira was even more quirky and cute around them.
[ final ]
There isn’t much spoken about it afterwards.
There have been some heavy petting, Allison promptly ending her relationship with Isaac after Kira reciprocates her feelings. There have been a few dates, some kisses left on cheeks, some left on collarbones. There was a nice pizza stop and skatepark in town they visited.
Kira has two marks.
A sun. A silver-tipped arrowhead.
She has two marks in the crooks of her elbows.
Scott McCall. Allison Argent.
And Kira Yukimura.
There’s a party thrown in Derek’s loft. Not while he’s there, of course, but all the same that isn’t important. Not now as Allison arrives and feels the pulsing of the bass and mass of bodies in the room. She had come with Isaac but they separate almost immediately. It’s a blacklight party she sees. Somewhere in the room, Stiles is doing a terrible sprinkler-dance move, and Lydia is flirting with Aiden. Allison decides to get a drink instead.
She strikes up a conversation with the girl behind the punch bowl. She sees the girl has outlined the mark in the middle of her lower arm with glow-in-the-dark pink paint. Allison swallows. She’s asked who she’s come with.
Scott arrives fifteen minutes later; Kira is glued to his side. This is her first party, she tells him.
He smiles then; hers is bashful, lovestruck.
“Well what do you want to do first?” he asks. Thus she shrugs, and both wonder to the drink table.
Kira isn’t exactly startled when Allison places her hands on Kira’s shoulders from behind. She’s bouncing along with the beat pulsing through the air, halfway buzzed from alcohol. Allison smiles and jokes that they took forever to get here.
Scott is the one who reveals that it was Kira’s first time at a rave party.
“Don’t worry. Mine too,” Allison leans in near Kira’s ear and shouting over the music. She pulls back and winks. She asks if Kira would like to get “tatted up.” It’s really just fluorescent paint. And Kira’s stolen away.
Then next three, maybe seven minutes were spent at the paint table. It was of Kira’s jaw slacking open when Allison pulls her shirt over her head and asks if Kira would draw on her body. Kira’s shapes are smooth and articulate. She leaves a little heart in glowing blue on Allison’s biceps. And then when the role switch and Kira eases out of her sweater, Allison tries to think of something clever to draw.
She’s tracing over Scott’s symbol on Kira’s arm when she asks how long she’s had the marks. Almost two years, Kira answers. Allison traces over Kira’s other mark in blue.
“How long do it take you to realize who your soulmate was?”
Allison pauses. She bites her lip. She doesn’t look up. “You kind of know instantly. Of course, it help when you see your own on them.” She asks Kira to turn around so she could draw on her back. “Like,” she began, but paused. “When me and Scott first got together, I had his mark—you know.”
Kira nods. She knew already. She and Allison shared the same little sun inverted tattoo in their skin.
“But as for my other mark…” Allison trails off. She writes cutie pie in pink under the back strap of Kira’s bra. Then a crudely drawn pair of white wings between her shoulder blades.
Kira knew about Allison’s other mark too. A lighting streak—her mark. Of course, she had never expected to get it—and most definitely not two.
Allison blows on the ink between Kira’s shoulders to dry it. The girl shivers, her pulse skipping.
She hadn’t expected it—just like the butterfly kiss Allison leaves just above the drawn wings, making Kira’s back arch and intake a breath involuntarily. Just like Allison taking her hand as the beat picks up and lead her back into the crowd, and asks if all this was ok.
What? The dancing? The marks?
Kira tries to dance on beat. “Yeah,” she answers.
It’s unexpected like when Allison grabs her by the hips and guides her, both moving on beat and closer, closer. Allison throws her head back, shakes her messy hair, and laughs. There’s a couple, a boy and a girl, dancing terribly beside them. Allison winks and draws Kira closer, both silently agreeing to out-dance them.
This all is unexpected. Moving to this town, making these friends, coming to this party, and her marks.
It’s unexpected as they win the dancing challenge, and how a minute later both girls are drawing over Scott’s dark skin. It’s unexpected about how great this had turned out, and how an hour later, Kira is dancing between the two best people in the world, sweating and amorous, all six marks glowing in the dark.
This was the most unexpected thing that could happened. It was the best thing that could have happened.