She wraps herself up in her grey cloak, hood up, even though the autumn day isn’t that cool. It’s the only way she feels even a little safe, though. It makes it harder for the hunter to find her; he can’t just look and identify her. He has to be sure, and that gives her time to run.
She hasn’t eaten in a couple of days. She’s been afraid to come back into town, afraid he’ll find her, and there’s not much to eat in the forest. It’s getting harder to think clearly, but begging doesn’t require a lot of thought — just sit down with her sign and look pitiful (not hard). Hopefully someone would drop her a couple dollars, at least.
She falls into a half-doze, coming alert when she senses someone a little kinder nearby. So when she notices the hunter’s tell-tale absence of emotional aura, it’s almost too late already — he’s only a dozen or so feet away, clearly headed in her direction. Panicked, she abandons her sign and her earnings and bolts, straight into someone’s chest.
It was an autumn day, right towards the end of October, and Stiles genuinely expected it to be cooler than this. He knew it was California, but they weren’t living in the middle of the desert either. Honestly he doesn’t know what to expect at this point, the weather is almost always hot. After living in Beacon Hills for so long, you’d think he’d know.
He’s home alone at the given moment, his dad on another long shift that night. He’d been taking longer shifts lately, Stiles noticed, and some part of him thought that he should go get a job so that his father didn’t have to work so hard. Besides, he had a car, he really needed to get a job. But, first, a walk to Scott’s because he always makes things easier for Stiles.
On his way he gets run into by a stranger, a girl that’s much shorter than him with a shawl over her head. It’s too hot for that kind of weather, even in the middle of autumn, so he really doesn’t understand why she’s wearing it. She also looks terrified, something Stiles doesn’t understand right off the bat. “Hey, are you okay?”
She looks up at the person at the sound of his voice. It’s a nice voice, coupled to a kind, if sharp, face. She shakes her head sharply and dodges behind him hastily, putting hm between herself and the hunter. If she’s lucky, if she’s oh-so-lucky, the hunter won’t have noticed her yet, and she can just hide here behind this tall and friendly stranger until he goes away.
She’s not lucky.
The hunter pauses at her abandoned sign, one eyebrow ticking up, and then he looks in exactly the direction she fled, exactly where she is, and comes over to the stranger. “You want to be careful, there,” he says, to the stranger she’s hiding behind, “that girl’s dangerous. I’m here to take care of her.”