It Hurts Because It's Real

"Morning, Bella." The voice of Lydia's mother called out sweetly as she walked past. Bella lifted her head off of her desk and smiled at her new teacher.

Bella turned her head to the side to see who had just sat next to her and groaned. "Oh, great. Are there seriously no other free seats?"

Aiden smiled at her. "Probably. But this is my seat."

Bella's face hardened and she turned her head to Lydia's mom at the front of the class. "Miss Martin, please may I be assigned a new seat?"

"On what grounds, Bella?"

"On the grounds that this guy is a complete asshole." She replied and nodded towards the werewolf next to her. Aiden grinned and looked down at the table.

"I will not tolerate profanity in my class, Miss McCall." Lydia's mother replied and Bella closed her eyes in frustration. "You will stay seated where you are." If it wasn't her best friend's mom up there, Bella would've up and left.

"That's a shame." Aiden replied mockingly.

Bella turned her head to the boy tiredly and glared. "Talk to me again and I'll kill you."

Aiden smiled, looked away for a second and then looked back. "So why is Lydia's mom teaching Biology?"

Bella sighed heavily but didn't look at him. "Because Mr. Harris used to teach Biology — until his new occupation. Human sacrifice." She give him a glare as she finished.

"What? I didn't kill him." Aiden replied almost defensively and Bella just gave him a look. "Bella, what?"

The girl turned her head to look at the boy and paused for a moment. Aiden shook his head at her in confusion. "Every time I look at you all I can think about is how many people you've killed." She whispered and Aiden's jaw clenched. "Boyd... you almost killed Cora... you'd probably kill Isaac if you could."

"Yeah, but that's because he beat the crap out of me that time." Aiden hissed, leaning closer to the tired girl.

"You deserved it." Bella deadpanned and the werewolf's face dropped.

"Fine. You're right. I've done a lot of bad things." Aiden exclaimed and Bella watched him with a frown. "What's your point? What do you want me to do?"

"If you want to be around me — stop doing bad things." She drawled out and Aiden just stared at her. He looked at her for a moment before speaking again.

"Are you going to that party tonight?"

"I was, before the power cut out." Bella replied.

Aiden nodded and turned around to Danny who was sitting behind him. "I think I know a place where you can have your party."

-

"Isaac, you ready to go?" Bella called out from outside the boy's room in her house. She had barely seen him let alone spoken to him about last night and honestly was dreading going to this party. She hadn't seen Stiles and had no idea where Scott was, but their mom seemed fine so she let it go. Scott would tell her whatever had happened tonight hopefully.

"Uh, yeah, I'm—" Isaac said as he opened his door and stopped in his tracks when he saw Bella. "Woah, um, you look... you look great."

Bella looked down at her outfit — she was literally wearing a vest with a shirt over the top and shorts so that she had room for the UV body paint. "Um, thanks?" She gave him a look and Isaac smiled awkwardly. Bella hated the atmosphere between them now. "You ready?"

"Yeah, yeah, c'mon." Isaac replied and started walking down the hall.

The drive to Derek's loft was filled with awkward tension and Bella practically prayed that Isaac wouldn't bring up what happened before they got there.

"So, isn't Derek gonna be mad about this?"

"Yeah, he'll be pissed, that's why no one's telling him." Isaac exclaimed and Bella nodded; imagining how glad everyone must be that Derek was away somewhere.

They finally got there and Bella let out a sigh of relief as she jumped out of her car. The climb of stairs up to Derek's loft was long as usual and Isaac had to stop and wait for Bella to catch up with him multiple times; at one point he even offered to carry her up but she just laughed awkwardly and carried on.

When they reached Derek's loft, Isaac gave Bella a look before pulling open the door to reveal the mass of people glowing neon. The sound of the electric music pulsated through Bella's body as she stood there, mesmerized by all the colours on the dancing bodies and walls. She looked up at Isaac to see his jaw on the floor.

"Derek can never know about this." The boy said and Bella almost laughed. She started moving forward into the crowd and looking for the body paint.

As Bella was walking, someone grabbed her wrist and pulled her back. She spun around to see Isaac staring down at her, holding onto her wrist.

Bella frowned up at him. "What is it?" She yelled over the music; she knew what it was, she just refused to talk about it.

"Are we gonna talk about you kissing me or are you just gonna act like it never happened?" Isaac yelled back, a stern look on his face as he gripped onto her so she didn't get pulled into the sea of bodies. "Cause Stiles just came in and I'm pretty sure you don't want him to see us together."

Bella stared up at him for a moment. She looked around, seeing if she could find Stiles in the crowd but it was hopeless so she looked back to Isaac. Then she looked to the body paint stall and grinned. She turned back to face the boy. "Do you wanna talk or do you wanna paint my body?"

Isaac visibly gulped before clenching his jaw; Bella felt his grip tighten on her wrist. "I wanna paint your body." He replied and Bella turned back in the direction of the paint, Isaac following behind her.

When they got there, Bella pulled her wrist out of Isaac's grip and shrugged off her shirt before wrapping it around her waist. Isaac's mouth parted as he watched the girl pick up a bottle of paint and a brush.

Bella turned to him and grinned. "Can I do you first?"

Isaac's eyes widened and he choked on his own breath for a second. "Uh, yep. Yeah, definitely, go for it."

She smiled at the nervous werewolf and dipped the brush in the white neon paint before leaning closer to him. Their faces were barely inches away from eachother, their chests heaving together. Bella concentrated as she painted a pattern on Isaac's face slowly, acting like he was a work of art. Isaac kept his eyes on the girl the whole time, his lips parted and eyes glazed.

As Bella came to paint the edge of his jawline, she noticed something behind the boy's ear. She started frowning and Isaac noticed.

"What? What is it?" He asked and Bella just ignored him and grabbed onto his face to tilt it to the side. "Bella, you're freaking me out——"

"You have something behind your ear." She explained lowly and set the paint down before grabbing onto Isaac's wrist like he had done to her not long ago. Bella pulled him into one of the storage closets and pushed him in front of the mirror. "Do you see it?" She leaned over him to tilt his head and show him the marking.

"What is that?" Isaac almost whispered in confusion.

"It looks like the number five." Bella replied in the same tone.

Isaac turned his head to look at her strangely and Bella frowned at him. "Did you hear that?"

Bella shook her head slowly in reply and Isaac's eyes flickered to the corner of the room. He moved over to the edge of the room and the girl followed him, watching him carefully.

"Oh my God." Bella let out when she saw what Isaac had heard — Ethan was lying in the corner of the room, looking like he was passed out but with his eyes open. She leaped forward, moving the boxes out of the way and tried to hold the werewolf up. "Isaac, help me." Bella said as she struggled and not a second later Isaac was at her side and helping her lean the boy against the wall. In that moment Bella was thankful that it was Ethan and not Aiden that needed their help, because she wasn't sure that Isaac would be so willing had that been the case. "What's wrong with him?"

"I have no idea." Isaac replied as he shook Ethan's head and smacked his face gently, trying to get him out of whatever phase he seemed to be going through.

"Maybe he just drank too much." Bella suggested as Isaac continued to bring the werewolf back to normal.

"No, that's not it, it doesn't work on us." Isaac explained and Bella remembered something briefly about alcohol not working on Scott. Isaac grabbed onto Ethan's forearm but Bella stopped him.

"What are you doing?" She asked quietly and looked at him.

"It'll trigger the healing." Isaac explained and quickly broke the werewolf's arm in one motion, making Bella cover her mouth and almost fall back. A roar erupted from Ethan's mouth as his eyes glowed a bright blue and suddenly Bella noticed something.

"Isaac, look." She said as she titled Ethan's head to the side to reveal a number five mark behind his ear. "It's the same as yours."

Isaac just stayed still for a moment, staring at the mark and breathing heavily before he spoke up. "Come on, let's get him out of here." He said and put Ethan's arm over his shoulder as Bella followed suit.

The pair of them stopped in their tracks, Ethan leaning on the both of them, when they came back onto the main floor. Everyone was running out of the party, the light on their bodies from the paint leaving the room as they did. Bella could make out Allison, Aiden, Scott, Kira and even Derek at different sides of the loft, but there was something else there with them.

Three, maybe four, dark figures dressed in black uniforms with black masks stood in the middle of the room; they almost looked like they were fading away, a smoke-like atmosphere around them. The strange figures all turned at the same time to face the same direction.

"Guys, they're all looking at me." Aiden exclaimed; the shadows took another step forward. "Why are they all looking at me?"

"Bella, leave. Now." Isaac hissed at the girl. Everyone had left the party now, it was just them and the black silhouettes.

"No, I'm not leaving you here." She replied, meaning all of her friends. Isaac went to reply but he was interrupted by Derek suddenly lunging forward at the figures. Bella stepped forward when Scott got involved in the fight but Isaac grabbed onto her with the hand that wasn't holding up Ethan; the girl looked back at him and he just shook his head, she retreated back to where she had been.

Not even a moment later, both Scott and Derek were on the ground. The black shadows all turned back to Aiden and Isaac jumped forward.

"Isaac, don't, just let them do whatever they need to do." Bella hissed at him from behind, struggling to hold up Ethan by herself. "I don't think they want to hurt anyone."

Isaac didn't make any moves on the figures but he didn't step back either. The silhouettes continued to walk towards Aiden; when they reached him, one of them simply put their gloved hand on the side of his head — but when they pulled the hand away, they touched their finger to the space behind Aiden's ear and Bella thought she saw smoke.

Once they were done, looking like they were fading away by the minute, the shadows turned to Scott and Bella felt a lump in her throat. But then she realised that it wasn't Scott they wanted — it was Kira.

Something weird happened next. The sun came up and the shadows simply faded away into the darkness, leaving everyone breathless and confused as they all looked around at eachother.

"What the hell were those things?" Scott asked, voicing what everyone was thinking.

Isaac turned to Allison. "Your Dad's twenty-four hours are up."