Chapter 1: The Fault in the Shadows
Chapter Text
The salt sting of sweat trickled down the back of Allison’s neck as she fumbled with the gauze again. Her fingers trembled, not from pain, but from the awareness that something was... off.
The wound was jagged, no longer fresh but not healing as fast as it should have. A werewolf’s claws had slashed her across the ribs, but it wasn’t the injury that haunted her. It was how fast she’d moved before it happened. Too fast. Too precise. She’d dodged that first strike like she had eyes in the back of her head. And when her blade had pierced the creature’s throat, she’d felt it die in her chest like it was a part of her.
She hadn't told her father everything.
Chris Argent had been gone that night, off dealing with some hunter politics in Montana and when he'd returned, she'd already stitched herself up, claimed it was just another close call.
Except close calls didn’t give you dreams like this. Dreams where you ran through forests on all fours, your mouth full of blood and your eyes glowing white. Where you liked the feeling of something else's fear in your throat.
Now, back in the Argents’ bunker, Allison stood still as a statue, the low light from the overhead bulb casting flickers across the metal wall where the weapons rack stood. Her reflection stared back from the polished silver of a crossbow bolt.
She’d come down here to borrow something. Just something small. A sliver of silver to test on herself.
Instead, her fingers had closed around her father's ceremonial dagger — one she'd sworn never to touch.
Footsteps on the stairs made her freeze.
“Allison?”
Chris’s voice was low, edged with concern. Or suspicion. She couldn’t tell anymore.
Her hand went to the dagger at her side just as he stepped into view. His eyes flicked to the weapon, to the tension in her stance, and then to her face.
“Allison. What are you doing?”
“I—” Her throat constricted. She couldn’t lie. Not to him. But the truth felt worse. “I just needed to… check something.”
“With a ceremonial blade?” His voice was harder now. Cold steel under calm.
Allison’s jaw tightened. “You weren’t here.”
Chris took a slow step forward, arms loose at his sides but body rigid, the hunter’s posture. “Then explain. Because from where I’m standing, it looks like my daughter is taking weapons she knows not to touch, sneaking around like she’s hiding something.”
Her knuckles turned white on the hilt of the dagger. She hated how his words made her stomach twist. Not because he was angry but because he wasn’t. He was calculating.
Afraid.
“You think I’ve changed,” she said quietly.
Chris’s jaw flexed. “Something’s not right.”
“You’re scared of me.”
“I’m concerned. And don’t pretend you haven’t felt it too. You’ve been off. Ever since that attack.” His gaze sharpened. “What aren’t you telling me?”
She looked away. “I can smell blood from across the room. I can hear when people blink. I—I flinched at the sound of my own heartbeat this morning.”
Chris didn’t speak. His silence filled the room like a thunderclap.
“I’m not bitten,” she rushed out. “I checked. No healing, no claws, no eyes. But something happened that night. Something... I can’t explain.”
Still, no reply. Just that unreadable stare that had made men confess to crimes without a word.
She tried again. Softer this time. A choked, trembling whisper: “Believe me. Please.”
Chris exhaled through his nose. “Then why the dagger, Allison?”
She stared at him. The disappointment in his voice landed like a blow. She felt it down to her bones, even more than the wound on her side.
“Because I was going to test the silver on myself,” she admitted. “Because maybe... maybe something did change. And if it did, I need to know.”
Chris flinched, just barely, but it was enough. Enough for her to see the truth in his face.
He was disgusted.
Not at her. But at what she might have become. What might have touched her. What he might have to do.
“Allison,” he said, voice brittle, “do you have any idea what you’re saying?”
“I’m saying I can’t even trust my own skin right now,” she snapped, tears prickling behind her eyes. “And if you won’t believe me, then—then who else will?”
“Then maybe you shouldn’t be alone,” Chris said, stepping forward. “Maybe you need to be... monitored. Until we know for sure.”
That broke something in her.
Like a string pulled too tight, Allison recoiled, pressing back against the weapons rack, shoulders hunched like a cornered animal.
Chris’s eyes softened at her reaction but not enough.
“Monitored,” she echoed. “You want to lock me up.”
“I want to protect you.”
“No, you want to protect everyone else from me.” Her voice cracked. “You really think I’m that far gone?”
“I don’t know what’s happening to you, Allison!”
“Then you should have come home sooner.”
That silenced him.
Chris stared at her, breathing slowly through his nose, and then nodded once. “Put the dagger back. We’ll talk in the morning.”
“No.” Her fingers wrapped tighter around the hilt. “I’m not done yet.”
He looked like he might reach for her. Might try to pull it from her hand.
She didn’t know what she would do if he did.
So instead, Chris backed away. Slowly. Like she was dangerous. Like she might snap.
“I’ll be upstairs,” he said, each word careful. “Try to get some rest.”
She didn’t.
Allison sat on the cot in the corner of the bunker, legs pulled to her chest, forehead resting on her knees. The dagger lay beside her, untouched now. Her ribs ached with every breath. Her heart thudded too fast in her ears.
She didn’t cry loudly. She couldn’t. It felt too dangerous like if she let one sob slip out, the rest would rip her apart.
So her tears ran quietly. Salt tracks down her cheeks, absorbed by the sleeve of her hoodie. Silent sobs wracked her chest as she tried to breathe through the guilt. The shame.
He didn’t believe her.
He believed in her training, in her judgment, in her ability to survive. But he didn’t believe in her. Not tonight.
The one person she thought would always see her, the real her, was too afraid to look.
Upstairs, Chris sat at the edge of the dining table, a glass of bourbon untouched in front of him. His hand shook slightly as he picked up his phone and opened a file.
The old folktale came up again. The one he thought was myth: the Echoed Vessel.
A ritual that could leave a hunter changed. Not supernatural. Not human. Something... other. Something born from grief, violence, and power.
Allison had fit the profile. Female. Young. A death-brushed soul on sacred ground.
And worse, if the transformation began, trust was the only thing that could keep the person whole.
If the vessel breaks, what remains is not them.
Chris buried his face in his hands. She’d asked him to believe her.
And he’d looked at her like she was a stranger.
Chapter 2: Teeth Behind the Mirror
Chapter Text
The sun filtered through the Argents’ kitchen windows the next morning, golden and soft like a forgiveness the house didn’t deserve. Chris sat at the table, staring into the untouched mug of coffee cooling between his hands. He hadn’t slept. His body was exhausted, but his mind had been running laps around guilt and dread.
He could still hear her voice from the night before.
“Believe me, please.”
He had. In his own way. But belief, without trust? It was hollow. Fragile.
He had stared into his daughter’s eyes and hesitated. Not because she was weak or dangerous but because he didn't understand what she was turning into.
And now? She hadn’t come upstairs. The cot in the bunker must’ve felt more like home than her own bed.
Chris rubbed his face and rose, footsteps heavy as he descended to the basement. The bunker door was cracked open.
“Allison?” he called softly.
No answer.
His stomach dropped.
When he stepped inside, the cot was empty, the dagger still resting neatly on the pillow. A note was tucked beneath it, her handwriting looped and sharp:
“I’ll be back. I need to be away from your eyes. — A.”
Chris clenched the note in his fist. Then he turned and sprinted back up the stairs, grabbing his keys and his phone.
If anything happened to her, if she did something to herself, he’d never forgive himself.
Allison ran.
The sun was too bright. Her skin itched from the light. She stayed to the trees.
It had started with a scent — something faint but metallic, like copper and sweat. A hunter would’ve dismissed it. But she had followed it. Her feet knew the trail like it was home. Her vision sharpened. Every movement in the brush danced like threads in a tapestry. She could see the pattern of the forest breathing.
She was changing. And she didn’t know into what.
She stumbled into a clearing, the one where she used to train. Where her father taught her how to reset a dislocated shoulder. Where she’d once cried because she killed her first wolf, and her father just laid a hand on her shoulder and said, “You did what was necessary.”
Today, she didn’t feel necessary. She felt wrong. Her breath caught as a sharp, phantom pain shot down her spine. Her knees buckled. She hit the dirt hard, gasping. Her body convulsed once like something inside wanted to shift but had no form.
A low, guttural growl tore from her throat before she could stop it.
“No,” she whispered, squeezing her eyes shut, digging her nails into the dirt. “I’m still me. I’m still me—”
But she could feel something watching her.
No—someone. “Allison?”
The voice, familiar, male, urgent, snapped through the air like a whip. Her head jerked up. It wasn’t her father.
“Scott?” she rasped.
The True Alpha stepped out from the trees, hands raised in caution. “What are you doing out here alone?”
Her lip trembled. “Did he call you?”
“Your dad?” Scott nodded. “Yeah. Said you ran. Said you might be... off.”
“I’m not—” she started, but the words dissolved on her tongue. She looked down at her hands. Dirt-caked, trembling. The veins beneath her skin darkened like ink.
Scott slowly knelt beside her. “What happened?”
“I don’t know.” Her voice cracked. “It’s like my body’s not mine anymore. Like I’m standing just behind my own eyes, watching someone else move.”
Scott studied her. “You’re not bitten. I’d smell it. You’re not infected. Not like that.”
She turned to him. Tears welled again, but she didn’t let them fall.
“Something is changing in me. I can hear the woods breathe. I feel alive when I’m holding a blade. I keep... dreaming of hunting. Not just monsters. People.”
Scott’s face paled slightly. “Allison—”
“I’m not saying I’m dangerous,” she said, voice low, desperate. “I’m saying I don’t know how to stop it. And my dad...he looked at me like I was already gone.”
Finally, the tears came. Soft and silent. Sliding down her dirt-streaked cheeks like bloodless wounds.
“I need you to believe me,” she whispered. “Please.”
Scott reached out and wrapped his arms around her, pulling her into a hug she didn’t know she’d needed. She shuddered. Collapsed into it.
“I do,” he said quietly. “I believe you. We’ll figure it out.”
Her fists clutched his jacket like a lifeline.
But even in Scott’s arms, she couldn’t stop hearing her father’s voice from the night before. His hesitation. His control.
His disgust.
Back at the house, Chris had gone to Gerard’s journals.
He never liked reading them. They were filled with obsession and bile. But the old man had collected stories—scraps of half-truths about rituals lost to time, about curses, about vessels born not of magic or infection but of legacy.
Hunters who saw too much death. Who absorbed too much blood. Whose skills turned inhuman.
Chris found a section underlined in red ink:
“The Vessels are not creatures. They are humans sharpened into monsters. They echo the instincts of the hunted and the hunter alike.”
A note in Gerard’s handwriting:
“Only faith can anchor them. Doubt breaks them.”
Chris let the journal fall closed.
He’d doubted her.
And now he didn’t know if it was too late.
It took three hours before Scott called him. By then, Chris had driven half the perimeter of the Beacon Hills preserve.
“She’s safe,” Scott said. “She’s rattled and scared. But I’m with her.”
Chris exhaled, leaning against his car. “Is she... is she herself?”
Scott hesitated. “Mostly. But something’s wrong. She says she’s dreaming of blood. Of hunting people. I think... I think she’s fighting something inside.”
Chris closed his eyes. “I should’ve listened.”
“She needs you to believe in her, Mr. Argent. Not as a hunter. As her dad.”
That night, when Allison finally returned home, the house was silent.
She moved like a ghost. Her steps soft. Her breath shallow. Her father was waiting in the living room, his hands empty, his expression unreadable. He didn’t stand when she entered. Just looked at her.
“You okay?” he asked.
“No,” she said honestly.
He nodded. “Neither am I.”
She blinked. “What?”
Chris rose and crossed to her, slowly. “You asked me to believe you. And I didn’t. Not really.”
She looked down. “I don’t blame you.”
“You should,” he said. “You looked me in the eye and told me you didn’t feel safe in your own skin, and I treated you like a suspect.”
Her jaw tightened. Her eyes shimmered.
“I read Gerard’s notes,” he continued. “About Echoed Vessels. You’re not sick, Allison. You’re becoming. Something old.”
She swallowed hard. “So I’m not human.”
“You’re more than human,” Chris said softly. “But you’re still my daughter. And I will never doubt that again.”
Allison stared at him, stunned. Her lower lip trembled. Her hands clenched into fists at her sides.
And then, like the dam finally gave out, she lunged forward and collapsed into his arms.
Her body shook with silent sobs, her tears soaking his shirt. Chris held her close, one hand cupping the back of her head, the other holding her like she might disappear.
“I’m scared,” she whispered.
“I know.” He rested his chin on her hair. “But I’m here. And we’ll figure this out. Together.”
For the first time in days, Allison felt anchored.
Not fixed. Not cured. But seen.
And maybe that was enough to keep the darkness at bay. For now.
Chapter 3: The Last Arrow
Chapter Text
The rain came hard and fast two nights later.
Beacon Hills had a habit of weathering storms that were never quite normal, this one was no different. Thunder cracked like distant gunfire, the lightning sharp enough to make the trees look like jagged scars on the earth. Chris stood at the window, watching it fall.
Downstairs, Allison sat cross-legged on the floor of the bunker, a half-cleaned weapon dismantled across her thighs. She hadn't gone out again. But she hadn't slept much either. She still felt it.
That crawl beneath her skin. The tangle of instinct and emotion, like two wolves circling each other in her chest. But worse than the primal hunger? The guilt.
She had almost lost herself.
The night before, she had come close to letting the echo in her blood take over. A man had grabbed a girl outside the gas station. Allison had seen it happen from across the lot. The old her would’ve shouted, maybe pulled out her taser.
This time? She stalked toward him without a word. No hesitation. No thought. Just... cold precision.
If Scott hadn’t been nearby, if he hadn’t stopped her when she pulled a blade from her boot, she might’ve done something irreversible.
The man had lived. He’d run off bruised and terrified. But so had Allison.
She’d run home, breathing like her lungs were full of fire. And when she’d made it back to the bunker, she’d dropped to her knees and wept silently, shoulders shaking, her face in her hands.
Silent tears.
Chris hadn’t interrupted. He’d waited. Given her space. But now... the space wasn’t helping anymore. They needed to talk.
He turned from the window, took the stairs two at a time. “Allison.”
She didn’t look up.
“I almost killed someone,” she said quietly.
“I heard.”
She finally looked at him. Her eyes were red-rimmed but dry now. “I didn’t feel bad about it. Not until later.”
Chris sat beside her, careful. “You stopped.”
“Scott stopped me.”
“But you did stop.”
Allison shook her head slowly. “No, Dad. That wasn’t me stopping. That was the last piece of me not listening to the monster. If Scott hadn’t been there...” Her voice cracked. “You’d be burying someone right now. And maybe me.”
Chris flinched.
She looked at him fully now. “Do you still believe in me?”
He reached forward and picked up the dismantled bow on the floor. The one she hadn’t used in weeks.
“I do,” he said. “But it doesn’t matter what I believe if you don’t believe in yourself.”
She stared at the bow in his hands.
He placed it gently between them.
“When you were twelve, you told me you wanted to be like your mom. Strong. Brave. But you were scared you weren’t cut out for it.”
Allison nodded once. “She was fire. I was glass.”
Chris gave her a look. “You were obsidian. Sharp. Made under pressure. Strong enough to cut through anything. Especially fear.”
Her throat tightened. She looked down.
“You told me,” he went on, “to tell you if you ever started to become someone who hunted without question. Without care.”
She looked up at him, startled.
“I’m telling you now,” he said, gently. “You are not her. You are not me. You are something else. Something we don’t have a word for yet. But it’s still you.”
Her eyes shimmered.
“You feel disgusted with yourself. I get it. I’ve felt it too. But you don’t have to carry that alone.”
This time, the tears came faster.
“I don’t want to be dangerous,” she whispered. “I don’t want to lose myself.”
“You won’t,” he promised. “Because I won’t let you. And because you won’t let you.”
They sat in silence for a while. Just breathing. Then he handed her the bow.
She took it in her hands like it was sacred.
Later that night, the storm knocked out the power. Chris lit candles. Allison padded up from the basement in a hoodie and thick socks, her eyes shadowed but calmer.
“Remember the first time the power went out?” she asked, settling beside him on the couch.
“You were seven. You thought we’d all freeze to death.”
“I made you build a pillow fort and defend it with a plastic sword.”
“You knighted me. Called me ‘Sir Dad.’”
They both laughed quietly. Then her face grew serious again.
“I’m not okay yet,” she said softly. “I still hear it. The urge. The hunger. Especially when I close my eyes.”
Chris turned toward her. “So don’t close your eyes alone.”
She looked at him. And then she laid her head on his shoulder. He didn’t move. Just rested his cheek against her hair.
“I’m trying,” she whispered. “Every second. I’m fighting.”
“I know.”
“I don’t know what I am.”
He said simply. “You’re my daughter.”
She closed her eyes. And this time, when the tears came, they weren’t from fear. They were from release.
The next morning, the sun was weak but visible.
Chris stood in the backyard as Allison stepped out onto the grass with her bow. Her grip was sure. Her feet steady.
He watched her notch an arrow, inhale slowly, and fire.
The arrow flew straight and true, hitting the tree dead center.
She didn’t cheer. But she smiled. Just a little.
“I don’t know what’s coming,” she said.
Chris folded his arms. “Then we face it together.”
“And if I change more?” she asked.
“Then I’ll learn how to help you change without losing you.”
Allison nodded slowly. “Believe me?”
He didn’t answer with words. He stepped forward and hugged her tight. And she hugged him back. Not as a hunter. But as his daughter. And that was enough.
Chapter 4: Epilogue: The Quiet Between the Arrows
Chapter Text
It had been six months since Allison nearly lost herself.
Six months since the storm. Since the silent tears and the knife she almost used. Since she’d asked her father if he still believed in her and meant it with everything she had.
Six months of clawing her way back toward herself. And now?
Now, she was standing in a clearing behind Scott’s house, her bow at her side and sweat slicking her hair to her neck. The grass was damp with late-morning dew. Her pulse beat steady, not from adrenaline or fear, but exertion. She’d just finished an hour of drills.
Her aim was better than ever.
But more importantly? So was her grip on who she was.
Chris watched from the fence line, arms crossed, a bottle of water in one hand. He hadn’t stepped in once during her practice session, just observed with the quiet patience he’d cultivated. His gaze still held sharpness, yes, but it wasn’t fear-driven anymore. It was pride, shaded with protectiveness.
“You’re dropping your elbow on the draw,” he said mildly, when she lowered the bow.
“I know.” She rolled her shoulder. “Stamina’s still not perfect.”
“You’re allowed to have bad days,” came a second voice.
Scott approached from the other side of the yard, towel slung around his neck, running shoes soaked from the morning mist. He handed Allison a granola bar without asking.
She took it with a tired smirk. “Subtle nutritional judgment, McCall?”
“You probably haven’t eaten since 6 a.m.”
Chris snorted from the fence. “He's not wrong."
Allison gave both of them a look but unwrapped the bar. “Fine. But if I cramp up mid-shot and hit you, it’s your fault.”
Scott didn’t flinch. “Wouldn’t be the first time I’ve been shot by you.”
Allison laughed—really laughed, head thrown back for just a second. The sound was light, unburdened.
Chris smiled at it like it was the most precious thing he’d ever heard.
A beat of silence passed before Scott sat down on a nearby rock, stretching out his legs.
“You’re doing better,” he said quietly.
“I’m doing different,” Allison answered. “I still get flashes. Still feel it crawling under my skin some nights. But... it’s not trying to take over anymore. Not the same way.”
Scott met her gaze. “Because you’re stronger now?”
“No.” She looked over at her father. “Because I finally stopped pretending I could fix it alone.”
Chris didn’t speak. He didn’t need to.
“Therapy helped,” she admitted. “And the anchor exercises you taught me, Scott.”
“Color and smell?”
She nodded. “And music. I keep a playlist now. One for grounding. One for battle mode. And one for when I’m scared I might not make it through the night.”
Scott looked down at his shoes. “I have one of those, too.”
Chris’s voice was quieter than usual. “So do I.”
A long pause. None of them needed to explain what that meant.
It wasn’t about being a hunter or a werewolf. It was about surviving long enough to realize that survival alone wasn’t enough.
Healing, as it turned out, was brutal in its own right. But it was also beautiful.
Chris finally stepped forward and handed Allison the water.
“Remember when you told me you didn’t want to be dangerous?” he asked.
She nodded.
“You were wrong,” he said gently. “You are dangerous. But that’s not a flaw.”
Scott raised an eyebrow.
Chris clarified, “Dangerous to the people who want to harm the innocent. Dangerous to the voices that try to convince you you’re unworthy. Dangerous to whatever darkness thought it could claim you.”
Allison looked at him and her throat grew tight. “I think,” she whispered, “I’m finally okay with that.”
Scott stood. “Then you’re ahead of the rest of us.”
“Don’t tell Stiles,” Allison said dryly. “His ego would spontaneously combust if I got there first.”
They laughed again, all three of them. Not to hide pain, but to celebrate that for the first time in a long while, the pain wasn’t running the show.
Scott gestured to the quiver at her back. “One more round?”
Allison raised her bow with a soft grin. “Sure.”
And this time, when she notched an arrow, her hands didn’t shake. She didn’t see shadows in the tree line or hear phantom voices whispering from her blood.
She just saw the target. She drew. Breathed.
Fired.
The arrow sang through the morning air and struck home, center mass.
Chris clapped once. Scott whistled low. Allison lowered her bow and turned to them both.
“Thank you,” she said softly. “For believing me. For staying. For not treating me like I was broken.”
Chris stepped forward and wrapped her in a one-armed hug. “You weren’t broken. You were healing. And that takes longer than anyone wants to admit.”
Scott added, “You don’t have to do it alone anymore. You never did.”
This time, when Allison’s eyes welled up, she didn’t blink the tears away. She let them fall.
Not shamed. Just... human. And free.