“Oh, okay, so are you just gonna try these on right now? All of them?” I heard Stiles say behind me. He’d been by my side as I looked for a dress, holding one out for me to survey every 2 seconds saying I would look great in them, before placing it back down on the rack and picking another one up again. It finally came to the point where I, unfortunately, had to shoo him away.
Allison and I were surveying a rack of red dresses when we turned our heads to the sight of Stiles holding a growing mountain of dresses for Lydia like he was her own personal servant. I knew the only reason Stiles was even doing this was because even though it was clear that Lydia found Stiles...unworthy— to put things lightly— Lydia and I had formed a relationship much deeper and meaningful than the Mean Girls friendship he and I expected us to have. So, he wanted to at least have an arrangement with Lydia where he could exist in her life without her treating him like a pest in need of exterminating.
“Is this a twenty-four-hour Macy's?” Stiles called out to Lydia through the massive pile of dresses in his arms, trying to catch up to her as she moved like a predator in search of the perfect dress for the school dance. The 12 Labors of Hercules somehow come to mind at the sight.
I continued on with my browsing as Allison plucked a dress from the rack, holding it out to her body and adjusting the full-length mirror that was provided. Not long after, I picked up a dress from the rack which I thought would look great on me.
“That's not your color.” The hairs on the back of my neck prickled at the sound.
I turned to address Peter, to show him he doesn’t scare me one bit even though he absolutely does, only to see he actually wasn’t even addressing me, but Allison. And somehow that thought scared me even more as all the worst possible scenarios played in my mind— and how in all of them I wouldn’t be able to protect her.
“Sorry if that was intrusive. But considering your skin tone, I'd go lighter.” Peter commented, politely imparting his wisdom as I turned my head this way and that, looking for Scott or Stiles. I knew Scott was here somewhere, probably listening, and I tried to reassure myself with that thought.
“Because I'm pale?” Allison softly retorted, the fire in her voice flickering with uncertainty.
“Fair.” Peter clarified. “I mean, you can't call skin like yours pale. Not skin that perfect.” Ew?
“Okay...” Allison chuckled as she shot me an amused look; this one saying: this guy is so weird. If only she knew...
She placed the red dress back on the rack as Peter picked a silver one up from another.
“Trust me, I have a unique perspective on the subject. Do you mind?” Peter grabbed Allison’s hand when she wasn’t paying attention, startling her.
“Hey!” I protested, somehow gaining the courage to advance on him, but he only took a step back, raising his arms in mock surrender as he did.
“Woah, there! Sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you girls.” Peter said with a chuckle, looking at me with an innocent smile before settling his eyes on Allison.
“N-no. It’s okay.” Allison told him with a polite smile, even though we both knew it wasn’t. Peter held his hand out for Allison, and she reluctantly gave him her hand. For a moment, Peter simply held her hand and, with a careful look, made a show of doing so as he watched me watch him; as if I were a dog and he was showing me that what he was doing was okay, and he means no harm. He knew exactly what he was doing, and it made my blood boil.
Satisfied that I wasn’t going to maul him, he gave me a mocking smile before bringing his attention back to the dress in his other hand. He lifted it near Allison’s hand as he appraised the two together.
“See? Much better.” Peter said, giving her the dress in his hand with a seemingly warm smile that it almost fooled me that he could be harmless. He stepped aside to let Allison see the dress on her for herself in the mirror. And that was when he turned to me.
He walked until he was standing in front of me, and I stood my ground the entire time, not even taking a tiny step back. He simply smiled before drifting his eyes to the dress I was holding. He made a move to take it from me and so I gave it to him freely. I’m sure he would look better in it than I ever could.
He placed the dress back on the rack as he searched for a dress for me.
“Now, you... the color of the dress you chose would look great on you, but,” he stopped, eyeing a dress before swiping it aside and continuing his search, “it’s not the best for your figure.”
“Oh, so you’re a fashion designer now, are you?” I snarled and he chuckled, before pulling a dress up by the hanger and assessing it in the light.
“Come on now. You want to look good for your date with Stiles, don’t you? Here.” He said, handing me a lace, backless, blood red dress. I shot him a glare but he only gave me a smile. Allison stepped back so I could use the mirror, clutching the dress he gave her as she looked between the two of us with a curiosity that killed millions of cats.
I watched myself in the mirror, holding the dress up to my body to see myself in it when Allison finally asked.
“You two know each other?”
I looked down at the reflection of the dress, feeling the fabric of it when I answered. “He’s a Medical Rep. He comes to the hospital, like, once a month to pester my dad and the other doctors with a bunch of new and improved life-saving drugs. Ones that cost more money than the last.
Through the reflection of the mirror, I saw him look at Allison. With a smile he said, “Guilty.”
“Although, what Elizabeth here failed to tell you is: we don’t only offer people temporary relief. We also give out...cures. Permanent cures. Ones that won’t only save you, but will actually make you stronger, and better. In more ways than one.”
“Yeah, well, it still comes with a price, doesn’t it?” I retorted.
“Everything does.” Peter answered back before walking back over to the rack holding the silver dresses, sifting through them while Allison remained standing behind me, carefully watching him.
“With my job, sometimes feels like I’ve spent a huge part of my life at a hospital. And most of the time, I had had to wait.” Peter said openly with malice, and then his voice softened again. “But it doesn’t matter. I always had Project Runway to keep me company to my slow descent into madness.”
He pulled out a dress from the rack, showing it to Allison. “What do you think?”
“Oh, I think it would look great on you.” I said to him sarcastically. He chuckled, shaking his head at me.
“No. Not for me. For my niece, actually. Cora.”
“Cora?” The name felt so familiar it evoked a sadness in me I couldn’t quite understand. A feeling like gazing into an old photograph from a time that felt so long ago, the memory of it would have been completely forgotten if not for a little reminder.
“Yes. Cora. My sister’s youngest daughter. You’ve met, don’t you remember?” He said to me, comparing two dresses to one another before addressing Allison. “She’s around your age.”
“Oh. Is she going to a Formal, too?” Allison asked but before he could answer her, a voice from the PA SYSTEM called for our attention first.
“Attention shoppers... To the owner of a blue Mazda, license plate—”
“Did she just say a blue Mazda?” Allison asked no one as she continued to listen.
“—5768. Your car is being towed.”
“Oh! That's my car!” She gave me the dress she was holding before quickly bolting away and out of sight. Peter and I shared a look before I realized who was behind this. It didn’t take Peter long to follow soon after that. He showed me an impressed smile as I smirked victoriously at him.
“I have to say, Scott, I continue to be impressed with your ingenuity.” He said to seemingly no one, putting the dresses back to its proper place. “Just remember... you can't be everywhere all the time.”
He was silent for a moment, as if he expected Scott to answer. Judging by the look on his face, however, I could tell he was regaled with none. And that was when he turned his attention back to me. It was just me and him now, as far as anyone could see.
“Do you really not remember Cora?” He asked with a hint of amusement in his voice. I didn’t answer. He tutted, sighing, before saying, “Don't feel bad. It's been forever since I saw her, myself.
Peter made his dramatic exit soon after that. After a while, Allison came back with a confused look on her face, explaining to me how her car was fine. Perfectly fine and in place. I told her maybe someone had made a mistake, describing her car instead of someone else’s, and she seemed to accept that explanation, wanting nothing more at that moment than to shop in peace. When she asked me where “that guy-friend" of mine went, I lied and told her he and his niece went home after she found a dress she liked. His niece: Cora.
Cora
Her name was still on my mind even after two hours where we were now waiting on the counter to pay for our dresses.
“Ma’am?” A voice called out, snapping me out of my daze.
“Hmm?”
“Your card please? Or if you want to pay with cash, that will do as well.”
“Oh! Sorry...” I said sheepishly, handing her my card that I already had ready in my hand. She gave a polite smile as I handed her mine and Allison’s dress. She scanned my card, looked at her screen, and then scanned the card again— and again. And again. The nice lady looked up at me nervously before saying,
“Your card’s not working...” Honestly, I should've known.
“Are— are you sure?” I asked nervously because what else can I say at the moment?
“I already scanned it four times. Do you maybe have another card you can pay with?
“Um—”
“I’m sorry. What’s going on?” Lydia asked from behind me, still holding her dress as she waited for me to pay for mine and Allison’s; which I can’t do anymore because my dad, most likely, cancelled my card.
“My card’s not working. A-are you sure it’s not something with your machine? Or something?” I asked nervously, fumbling with the straps of my bag.
“I’m afraid not. And if you can’t pay, I’m going to have to ask you to step out of the line, please?” The lady, somewhere around her early 30s, said; with a name of Sarah, according to her name tag.
I looked to Allison, just about ready to drop to my knees and apologize whilst wishing the ground would open and send me somewhere far away from the humiliation of this situation, when Allison smiled at me and took her wallet out of her bag. Immediately, I knew what she was planning on doing.
“No! Come on!” I whined, pushing her hands away and urging her to put her own card back in her bag.
“It’s fine! It’s fine.”
“Uhh...No. It’s not fine because I know who you are, and I know you’ll only let me pay you back for my dress and not yours.” I pointed out, knowing it was true, and Allison wasted no time in denying it.
“I—You shouldn’t even be paying for my dress. I forgive you! Just let me pay for our dresses and you can pay me back later. Come on!” Allison argued, swiping my hand away as I fought with hers to stand down. I wasn’t sure how long we’d stayed that way exactly, but sometime along Lydia walked to the front and paid for all of our dresses, instead. Providing us with a perfect solution, as always.
It was only when we were already on the parking garage that I actually remembered to ask. “Lydia, where’s Stiles?”
“Uhh...don’t know? Maybe he left.” She said distractedly, purposefully avoiding my eyes; and before I could even interrogate her on the matter, she quickly added. “You know, it’s probably better that way. What, with his house being so far away from yours when your house is so much closer to Allison’s, anyway. See you guys!”
And before I could even utter a word, she was already walking away towards where she parked her car. Allison had stopped walking, too.
“I wouldn’t mind driving you to your house.” She told me, and it was then that I realized we were already standing in front of her car.
“No, it’s fine. Stiles wouldn’t leave without me. Or without telling me, at least, and—
PING!
With a quick apology, I checked my phone to see a message from Stiles. Say yes, it said. Scott.
“Uhh, you know what, actually, that’d be great. Stiles just texted me, saying he still has some... things to do.” I cringed, the both of us walking to her car.
We got in and buckled our seatbelts when another text came through. This time it was a picture of Stiles reclining on a comfortable-looking couch, drooling on the tulle skirt of a dress as he slept on a pile of colorful dresses.
So that’s where Lydia left him. I thought, giggling at the photo Scott sent me through Stiles’ phone.
“What is it?” Allison asked, amused, as she pulled out of our spot, which was quickly claimed by a family in a minivan.
“Oh, it's just something Stiles sent me. It’s— it’s nothing.” I mumbled with a smile, quickly shutting my phone so she wouldn’t see the photo, and question who exactly took it. She merely hummed, and for a while it was quiet, but it didn’t last long.
“So...”
“No.” I quickly interrupted with a warning tone, knowing exactly where she was heading with this. A warning she promptly ignored.
“How are you and Stiles?” Allsion asked, a barely contained smirk as she fished for gossip.
“We’re fine.” I simply told her.
“Just fine?” She probed, her tone light and playful as she teased me simultaneously, and I just didn’t feel like hiding it anymore. I slowly set my smile free as I told her everything. Well, everything of importance, anyway.
“It’s freaking great! We aren’t just going as friends. We’re going on a date, as in an actual date-date, not the fruit date, and we almost kissed!”
“What???” Allison all but screeched as she asked.
“I know, I know. And, you know, we actually did kiss, technically, but I didn’t kiss him back? It was a kiss to stop this panic-attack I was having, and I was actually just focusing on not throwing up in his mouth; but then that same night, sometime later we were both leaning in to kiss each other, right? But then we got interrupted—”
“Woah, woah, woah, woah...Slow down! When was this?” Allison asked, seemingly trying not to pull her eyes away from the road.
“Last night.” I answered.
“When you crashed your car on Scott’s mom’s date’s car?” Allison asked quickly.
“Yes. I was having a panic attack when he kissed me, and that was when I didn’t kiss him back. But when we got to his house sometime later after that, that was when we almost kissed.” I quickly informed her when I got a text again from Stiles/Scott.
“Okay, okay. Got it. Now start from the beginning and don’t leave anything out. Except maybe for the boring bits.” Allison quickly added.
'Make sure Allison gets to her house safely. Gonna help Scott rent a suit for tomorrow. Also delete above photo from your phone and mind pls.' I quickly read before getting back to my conversation with Allison.
“Okay. So, I’m going to skip the car incident thing ‘cause it’s not important. A quick summary of that: we were traumatized. And, anyway, we got to his house and we were just trying to relax after what had happened, then Kent McNeil called...”
Even though Allison insisted she drop me off to my house, I easily convinced her not to, reasoning that my house was only a quick power-walk away from hers. It allowed me to make sure she got to her house safely like Scott asked.
Although it did mean that my dad could get home before me, so my quick power-walk unfortunately had to turn into a race against time. And wouldn’t you know it, 10 minutes after I had arrived, all sweaty and out of breath, I heard my dad’s car pull up and our garage door open.
And with the beat-up Macy’s bag— that was due to my run— holding my dress, safely hidden deep in recesses of my closet, I entered my bathroom to take a well-deserved bath.
My dad pretty much pretended our conversation from that night never happened, and though I felt ashamed doing do, I played along. Whenever we have dinner together, he would always ask me how my day was, and I would tell him it was fine. School was great. I mean, it’s not like I was only allowed an hour to do activities outside of school.
And my dad would talk endlessly about his work; his colleagues; his patients; and would occasionally ask me if I were excited to see my mom again—and I would say yes. Because from the moment I step into my house, is the moment I step into this family sitcom I’m in now where I am forced to play a character that is supposed to be lovable and, most of all, ignorant to what was happening around her. Laughing, smiles, jokes— for the whole world that’s watching, which was just about the scariest shit horror movie in cinemas at the moment, with me as the star.
Which was why, as a means to preserve my sanity, I go to bed immediately after dinner and close the lights of my bedroom to make it as if I was already asleep. And my dad will see this and know not bother me anymore. It will also make things easier for me when I sneak out of the house tomorrow.
Tap!
I was group texting with both Lydia and Allison under the covers, chatting about our dresses and what to pair them with for tomorrow; how we should do our hair, when I heard it.
Tap!
And there it was again. I lifted the covers, breathing in the cold air I was deprived of for a maximum of five minutes, looking around my dark room in search of the source of the sound. What followed next was no longer a simple tap, but rather an alarming Thud! And I followed the sound to my window.
I quietly got out of my bed, ignoring the constant vibrations going off on my phone, walking towards my window to check out the sound. It could just be nothing. Maybe a bird tapping against my window, getting scared away by Rudolph landing on my roof. Or a crazed, murderous werewolf coming here to kill me as a warning to my friends...
Or simply just for the pleasure of it.
I couldn’t see from here what the moon looked, if it was full or not. Stiles would have informed me and Scott about it, but who knows? Maybe it doesn’t matter whether the moon was full or not. Maybe the fuller it was, the brighter light it gives, the more unhinged the creatures living under it becomes. And the moon definitely provided an adequate brightness to the dark tonight; lighting my room and making it look ethereal.
I finally reached the window, keeping a few inches of distance between me and the glass, standing on my tiptoes to check the view below. No one as far as I could see. I took a cautions step, peering over just to make sure— nothing. I looked around more, up and down, left and right, but there was nothing and no one outside. Just the trees, our fountain, and Scott staring at me with wide eyes while hanging upside down.
I let out a squeal, trying my best to quell the sound by covering my mouth. Scott also tried helping, in his own way, by lifting a finger and hovering it urgently over his lips. And it was a great help.
I let out a frustrated growl, removing my hand from my hammering heart to harshly throw my bedroom window open, dragging Scott inside. Doing so, I ignored his whispers and cries of protest and pain.
“Ow, ow! Liz, wait, please, I'm gonna fall!”
Once he was safely inside, I breathed in, and out with sigh. And then I started hitting him.
“Ow, ow—”
“What”—smack— “the hell” —smack— “is wrong with you!” Smack! Smack! smack!
“Stop, stop! I’m sorry!” Scott whispered, holding my wrists before letting go and taking a cautious step back, and I stopped myself from hitting him, for now. Scott bent down to pick my phone up from the floor, which I hadn't even noticed I dropped on the ground. Scott gave it to me and I took it.
“I would’ve called or texted but, you know...” He said, waving his hand before tucking it in the pocket of his jeans. I sighed, placing my phone on my desk.
“Why are you here, Scott? Not that I mind you coming in to my room through the window in the dead of night and scaring the living shit out of me, of course.”
“It’s 8 PM, grandpa!” Scott argued. “I’m here because I was in the area, and I thought I’d—” he stopped, seemingly trying to find the appropriate words, “—check in on you.”
“You were in the area?” I asked suspiciously. He took a moment to answer but when he did, it was with the truth.
“I was...outside Allison’s house. You know, protecting her! In case Peter tries something. Or even Derek!”
I folded my arms in front of my chest before asking Scott, “Okay, so why are you here, then?”
“I wanted to check in on you— with how you’re doing with all of this,” he said, and I simply looked at him, expecting him to say more. He sighed, saying, “I know what happened after you crashed your car. And before that, too. I heard your heart beating; it was erratic, and... abnormal. I know there’s something more happening with you that you’re not telling us.”
I opened my mouth to answer him before closing it again. I did this for a few times, trying to come up with the words to properly say what I wanted him to know, but the thing is, I haven’t yet decided what that would be.
“Derek told me something before he went to fight off the Argents— before he disappeared in the woods. He told me your mom was coming, and I have to protect you from her before it’s too late again.” Scott said, furrowing his brow in confusion. This time it was my turn to sigh. I turned around to sit on my bed, and Scott followed me to do the same.
“My dad,” I started to explain, “he told me something similar. He told me mom will be home in a few days and she’ll make everything right again— whatever that means. And he also knows you’re a Werewolf.”
“What?” Scott screeched. Up until this point we were whispering, so I quickly covered his mouth with my hand to quiet him. He flashed me his apologetic eyes, and I lowered my hand from his mouth, wiping it on his jacket.
“I think they’ve known for a while. And not just about you— about all of this supernatural business. My dad’s been weird: saying something about me forgetting; and resetting or whatever. He said something about mom getting things back to the way they were. And he also said,” I stopped, choosing my words carefully, “he said I can’t have you over here anymore. Because you're a Werewolf.”
We sat in silence for a few minutes, trying to find the right words to say to each other, and in the end: failing.
“I should...probably get back to Allison’s house.” Scott said, finally.
“No, yeah, right. Of course.” I said as he stood up.
“It’s just that...I feel like I’ve been gone long enough—”
“Right. And it’s not like she’s a part of a Werewolf hunting family, or anything like that. She must be completely helpless and vulnerable right now, “I said, as seriously as I can.
“Exactly. It’s just what I was thinking. Yeah, “Scott said, equally as serious. We both stood by my window for a few seconds, trying to keep a straight but descending into a fit of giggles by the end. Scott opened my window and swung a leg off the ledge.
“Hey, don’t forget to take care of yourself, okay. Once the Argent’s hit that high-tech security house system of theirs, head back to your house and get some sleep. I’m sure she’ll be fine, then. Can’t protect anyone if you don’t take care of yourself first.”
“Alright, mom,” Scott whined mockingly, forcing me to slap his arm to put him in check. We both snickered, but afterwards he just stayed there, seemingly thinking something over.
“My mom said your dad switched to the morning shift a few days ago,” Scott said, making me sigh.
“Yeah. It’s all part of his plan to protect me.”
“And he’s not actually letting you go to the Winter Formal tomorrow, is he?” I tutted my tongue, folding my arms in front of me with a tight-lipped smile.
“Nope,” I answered sharply.
Scott chuckled before saying, “Well, that makes two of us, not allowed to go to the dance.”
I hummed as I realized this myself. “I guess so.”
Scott swung his other leg off the ledge of my window, turning his back to me and saying, “I’ll make sure to tell Stiles to stop a few houses away. And don’t worry, I’ll help you with your escape.”
“You gonna carry me bridal-style and leap us down from here?” I teased. Scott looked back at me, bracing himself.
“More or less, yeah.” Scott finally jumped down from my window, and I leaned my head down to see him walk away, only to catch a glimpse of him—for a lack of a better word— galloping towards the direction of Allison’s house. I closed my window, picked up my phone and went back to my conversations with the girls, before finally falling asleep on my bed.
I sighed when I looked up, and saw Stiles had parked the car in his driveway.
"This isn't my house." I said to Stiles.
Stiles chuckled before jokingly saying, "Perceptive."
I didn't laugh back, simply giving him a blank look to let him know just how hilarious I found him to be. He cleared his throat, uncomfortable, licking his lips before saying,
"I... need your help with something."
I sighed, wordlessly getting out of his Jeep and walking to his door. I tapped my foot against the floor, quietly, but impatiently waiting for Stiles to open it for me to enter. He gave me a nervous chuckle, letting me come in first, and I walked inside without even sparing him a glance as I headed straight for his room. Was I being a bitch? Definitely, yes. Did he deserve it? Who knows.
I walked inside, only to jump back in fright when I saw Derek there, standing like a statue on the side of the room with his hands inside his leather jacket. He raised both hands slightly, silently telling me to calm down. I raised my eyebrows at him as Stiles came in a moment later to sit in his desk chair, completely missing seeing Derek there.
"Hey, Stiles!" Mr. Stilinski yelled from downstairs, making him turn his chair around to face his door, expecting his dad to walk inside as we could already hear him coming up the stairs.
"Yo, Da— Derek?" He said, his eyes landing on Derek as I walked towards his bed, sitting down on top of it as I watched the scene unfold before me.
Stiles clumsily ran outside, stopping his dad from coming in as he leaned against his door frame, the door half-closed with his body acting as its door stopper.
“What'd you say?" I heard Mr. Stilinski ask as I let myself lie on my back on Stiles’ bed, closing my eyes as listened to their conversation. I ignored Derek, even though I could practically feel his eyes on me.
"What? I said, "Yo, D-Dad." Stiles said, and I heard Mr. Stilinski sigh before saying,
"Listen, I've got something I've got to take care of, but I'm gonna be there tonight. I mean, your first game."
"My first game... Guh—Gosh. Great! Awesome. Uh... good." Stiles said awkwardly, making me sigh loudly in frustration. It was quiet for a few seconds before I barely heard Mr. Stilinski ask quietly,
“Is someone there with you?”
“What! No! No. No no.” Stiles replied, chuckling nervously, which again was followed by a moment of silence.
"Well, I'm very happy for you. And I'm really proud of you." Mr. Stilinski said, an awkward moment later.
"Thanks. Me too. I'm happy and proud... of myself." Stiles said, which made me smile, in spite of the fact I was still very much angry at him.
"So, they're really gonna let you play, right?" Mr. Stilinski asked.
"Yeah, Dad-- I'm first line!” I furrowed my brows when I didn’t understand the noise he made at the last part of his sentence. And judging by the, yet again, awkward silence that followed, neither did his dad.
"I'm very proud." Mr. Stilinski said.
"Oh, me, too. Again, I'm— oh! " Stiles' body was pulled from the doorframe, effectively closing the door shut as it no longer had a door stopper preventing it from doing so. I presumed Mr. Stilinski pulled Stiles into a hug and my suspicions were confirmed when I faintly heard him say repeatedly, muffled through the closed door, the words,
"Huggie, huggie, huggie..."
At least now I know I can roll my eyes with my eyes closed.
“So, uh, is it Liz you have in there?” I heard Mr. Stilinski ask and I opened my eyes and sat back up to make myself presentable, and ready to go out if I had to. Anything to keep him from finding out that we were harboring a state fugitive/wanted, alleged, murderer.
“Yup! Mhm. Yup. We’re just hanging out. You know, like—like normal. Like what we normally do. Just us. Scott has a thing, so it’s, uh... just us.”
I huffed out a sigh, looking at the ceiling in exasperation as I already knew how it must’ve sounded to Mr. Stilinski—or anyone who isn't Stiles.
“Right. Well, um... Just be careful, alright, son?” Mr. Stilinski said, making me cringe as that statement felt something akin to a calm before a huge fucking storm.
“What?” Stiles asked, more clueless than the average monkey.
“Just...You know?” Mr. Stilinski said before he dropped the most awkward bomb of all awkwardness the world will ever know; at the Stilinski household no less, where awkwardness itself first originated.
“Wrap it before you tap it. Use protection. Listen to your partner and—”
“OKAY! Okay, then, dad. I-I—We will. We will. Okay, so just—you should probably be heading down now to your thing, right? ‘Cause, you have that thing, and you don’t want to be late to that thing...”
"See you there." Mr. Stilinski said, his voice fading as I imagined Stiles pushing him away—far, far away from here.
"Take it easy." Stiles said back quickly and after a moment more, he immediately ran back inside to see the sight of me sitting on his bed with my head on my hands.
"Oh!" I heard Stiles exclaim, shortly followed by a thud, making me lift my head up to see him pushed up against the wall by Derek.
"If you say one word..." Derek growled, to which Stiles replied sarcastically
"Oh, what? You mean, like, "Hey, Dad, Derek Hale's in my room. Bring your gun?"
Derek was silent, no witty comeback to counter Stiles’ sarcasm.
"Yeah, that's right. If I'm harboring your fugitive ass, it's my house, my rules, buddy." Stiles said smugly, slapping his chest, which he immediately regretted doing shortly after, as Derek seemed to contemplate whether or not to kill him right on the spot. Opting against it, he let go of Stiles, rearranging Stiles' jacket as it had gotten messed up, but in a way that suggested it wasn’t because he was trying to be kind. Trying to look cool, Stiles huffed out a laugh and did the same to him before walking away.
"Oh, my God!" Stiles exclaimed, flinching back when Derek took a quick and menacing step towards him, ripping off the blanket of the cool and unbothered persona Stiles had flimsily covered himself with. I chuckled at the sight as I dumped my head back against his bed, closing my eyes. I heard him scoff before he sat back down on his desk chair.
"Scott didn't get the necklace?" Derek asked us.
"No. He's still working on it." I answered, my eyes still closed.
"But there's something else we can try.” Stiles said before he explained. “The night we were trapped at the school, Scott sent a text to Allison asking her to meet him there.
"...So?" Derek asked, not understanding how that was of any importance.
"So, it wasn't Scott." Stiles said, quickly getting to the point.
"Well, can you find out who sent it?" Derek asked, now interested on what Stiles had to say.
"No, not me... But I think I know somebody who can..." Stiles trailed off, and when neither of them spoke, I opened my eyes and turned my head to see the both of them looking at me.
"Well, I can't do it." I told them, sitting up.
"No. But Danny and Lydia can." Stiles told me and I raised my eyebrows at him in surprise.
"Danny?" I asked, not quite sure I heard him right, but he nodded his head to me in confirmation. And Lydia—doesn't surprise me in the least. I shrugged, pulling out my phone to call Danny. We had this project not due for another week that I used as context to lure him to Stiles' house. He asked a bit of question as to why, but I only told him I was already there, and that his house was closer to mine. He seemed to buy it.
Lydia was surprisingly easy to get here. There was no lie I could think of that she wouldn’t see through that would ever bring her to come here, which was why I simply told her the truth. Or... part of the truth, anyway. I told her we were in pursuit to find the killer, and seeing as it was technically true, she believed us. Also, I’m pretty sure she thought putting her hacking skills to good use would be an excellent, mindless distraction, considering what had just happened between her and Jackson. Plus, I told her Danny would be there.
"You want me to do what?" Danny asked Stiles, standing over him, while Derek and I watched silently from the side. I was still seated on the foot of Stiles’ bed whilst Derek sat himself on a chair close to me, trying to look inconspicuous as he pretended to read Stiles’ history textbook. The same one Scott used when he was trying to hide from Allison.
"Trace a text." Stiles said casually, annoying him and making him turn to me for an explanation, instead.
"I came here to do lab work— that's what lab partners do." Danny told me.
"And we will! ...Once you trace the text." I told him, giving him a cheeky smile when he pursed his lips at me in annoyance.
"And what makes you think I know how?" Danny asked, and I opened my mouth before shutting it closed a second later.
"What makes me think he knows how?" I asked Stiles, and he gave me a goofy smile before looking up at Danny from his seat.
"I-I looked up your arrest report, so—" Stiles started before Danny cut him off.
"I-I was thirteen. They dropped the charges." Danny said defensively.
"Ooh... What'd you do?" I asked, singing the question but Danny was not in the same playful mood as I was.
"No! We're doing lab work." Danny said firmly when Lydia entered the room, walking straight to where I was sitting like she owned the place.
"Hmm. No we're not." Lydia told him, confidently walking past him and sitting beside me on Stiles' bed as though she'd been here a million times before. Lydia stared him down from her seat, and as though powerless against the 5-foot 3 girl before him, he sighed before relenting, sitting down besides Stiles in his desk.
Stiles did this thing where he silently raised his arms victoriously-- and not-so-subtly-- above his head, and the sight of it put a grin to my face I, unfortunately, couldn't suppress.
I excused myself to get two more chairs for Lydia and I to sit beside them. When I came back and placed the chairs beside the two, Lydia sat beside Danny, leaving me to begrudgingly sit beside Stiles. He smiled at me but I simply stared at the screen Danny was working on, not in the mood to smile back. He sighed sadly but I ignored that, too, watching as Danny seemingly waited for something to load in the screen, tapping his fingers impatiently.
"Who's he again?" Lydia asked us, pointing the lip gloss she was applying on her lips at Derek, whom was still seemingly reading his book on the other side of the room.
"He's my cousin, Miguel." Stiles said quickly, a terrible lie but not as horrible as mine.
"He's a stripper." I said at the same time as Stiles. The three of them all stared at me; Stiles, with an openly disappointed look on his face. He looked at me like I was the one thing in the entire world that he didn't understand; open-mouthed and his head slightly turning left and right in a disapproving manner and ...wonder, perhaps?
After a moment, he snapped out of it but he still stared at me with that same look in his eyes.
"Yeah, yeah. Um, my cousin, Miguel, also... moonlights as a stripper to make some extra dough to help his family, so..." Stiles said reluctantly, and I nodded my head in support of his words but neither Lydia nor Danny seemed to notice as they simply stared at Derek, observing him from their seats as he continued to pretend to read, when in truth he was actually listening in to every word that was being said using his supernatural hearing.
" ...Is that blood on his shirt?" Danny asked us.
"Yeah. Yes. Well, he gets these horrible nosebleeds." Stiles told him and I nodded my head, deciding it best not to speak anymore for the rest of this conversation.
"Hey, Miguel... I thought I told you, you could borrow one of my shirts?" Stiles called out to Derek, making him look up from his book at the four of us. He angrily slammed his book shut, not taking his glare off of Stiles and I as he stood up from his seat and headed straight for Stiles' drawer.
"So, um, how do you know how to do this?" Danny asked Lydia, seemingly trying to distract himself when Derek took off his shirt, to which Lydia countered,
"How do you?"
Before they could each sing to each other their origin stories, however, Derek called for our attention once more.
"Uh, Stiles...?"
"Yes?" Stiles asked tensely beside as he turned his seat around to face him, barely holding in an agitated sigh. Derek tugged on one of his shirts, stretching it to emphasize his point as he said,
"Sorry. So—" Stiles said but stopped when he saw both Lydia and Danny eyeing a very toned, very shirtless Derek. Super-hot and super cool back tattoo and all.
"Hey, that one looks pretty good, huh? What do you think, Danny?" Stiles asked Danny loudly, nudging him as he had shyly averted his eyes from Derek, whom had donned Stiles' orange and blue shirt.
"Huh?" Danny asked uncomfortably, not meeting our eyes as it danced from his lap to the computer screen.
"The shirt?" I told him, somewhat catching on to what Stiles was planning. Danny was already on board, so I guess this was just incentive? Added encouragement, perhaps? Either way, he was pimping Derek out to the both of them and that, I knew how to do. I mean, I've basically been doing that to both Scott and Stiles since Kindergarten to Mrs. Apple.
"It's... it's not really..." Danny was saying before Lydia boldy repeated, out loud,
"No. It's definitely not his color."
"But... It's the color of the Mets..." I said to Lydia's as she had stood up from her chair to walk over to Derek and confidently help him find a wearable shirt his size and style. Derek begrudgingly let her, throwing a dirty eye our way.
"You swing for a different team, but you still play ball, don't you, Danny-boy?" Stiles whispered to Danny, to which Danny simply replied,
"You're a horrible person."
"I know. It keeps me awake at night." Stiles said back, and realizing we were getting off topic, I redirected us and said,
"Anyway, about that text... "
But once again, we were interrupted by Derek, still shirtless, and this time yelling,
"Stiles! None of these fit!"
Lydia was using her hand to lean against Stiles' drawer while her other hand rested on her hip, a sassy look on her face that told me she was not impressed with Stiles' wardrobe.
"I'll need the ISP and the phone number." Danny said quickly to Stiles, distracting himself from Derek's hotness by turning his back to him fully.
"Don't forget the exact time of the text.” Lydia said to Danny before turning her head to me, asking, “And Beth? Does your boyfriend have any clothes that'll at least fit Miguel here, or are all of this kiddy sized?"
"Hey!" Stiles complained the same time I argued,
"He's not my boyfriend!"
We both looked at each other, then quickly looked away, our faces beet-red from embarrassment. I pointed Lydia to Stiles' back closet where he kept his “Jackson” clothes from when he was still trying to impress her. Stiles tried to emanate Jackson so much he even bought what clothes he would wear in his size. Thankfully though, they were big and stylish enough-- for Lydia's standards-- to fit Derek's size and hot-o-mometer. Don't ask.
Danny and Lydia worked on decrypting wherever—and whomever-- it was the text came from while Stiles and I resumed our task of ignoring each other. This time for another reason entirely.
Finally, after a time that felt like a millennium of waiting with the silence, save for Danny and Lydia arguing with each other over the best way to approach their problem-- a few snippets here and there, finally...
"The text was sent from a computer." Lydia told us, getting all of our attention—even Derek's.
"That one." Danny said, pointing to an IP address none of us paid attention to as our main focus was more so on the letters of a name, painted in bold red.
"Registered to that account name?" Derek asked no-one in particular.
"Mhmm." Lydia hummed before turning to face him, putting on a sultry smile he ignored before asking him, "Why?"
She knew why.
"No, no, no, no. That can't be right." Stiles muttered.
"No. It can't. It's not." I, unconvincingly, declared as the both of us stared at the name that was colored in red with apprehension and worry.
Scott came knocking on my window just as he promised he would to come pick me up. It was already around 7:45 when he came to pick me up and by then I was already done with my hair, dress, and makeup. But an hour before all that, I made a show to go down the stairs to the living room, in my pajamas while brushing my teeth where my dad could see me grab my earphones which I accidentally left on the table; making him think that I was already going to bed at 7 so that I could wake up really early in the morning to have more time to hangout with my friends before school started, than the one hour of free time he gave me after school.
For the past few days, I’ve been asking my dad for rides to Stiles’ or Scott’s house on his way to work. It was all routine at this point and I made sure he got used to it. By the time I arrive at their houses, Sherrif would already be at the station bright and early in the morning as he is the Sheriff, and Melissa would already be home from work, fast asleep.
As soon as I heard the quiet tap tap tap on the window, I immediately grabbed my purse from the table and ran to the sound. I opened my window and let Scott in before grabbing the heels I left by the floor. The lights were already closed and lumpy pillows in human-like form was already on my bed, under a pile of blanket so Scott already knew to be quiet.
“So, how exactly are we gonna do this?” I whispered questioningly to Scott.
“Uhh..” he said, looking at my window with his hands on his hips as he thought about it. Finally, he said, “Okay.”
Scott walked to my window and sat down on the sill before leaning down and letting his body hang, the muscles of his arms straining to keep himself up.
“Okay. Now sit down on the sill and loop your legs through my arms,” Scott said, not even sounding slightly winded.
“Aww, I missed this! Piggy-back riding on you and Stiles. ” I whispered, doing as he told me to, my arms going around his neck. He chuckled before commenting—
"I think the last time we got to do that was when Stiles broke his arm, right? When we were in middle-school?" Scott jumped down from our spot on my window before I could answer, my breathe stuck to my throat. If I weren't holding my bag and my shoes, his polo shirt would've been no more. And then this would've turned into a real werewolf story.
I breathed out a sigh, letting go of Scott and putting on my heels, saying," Well, technically that was your fault. He was handling me all fine on his own until you joined."
Scott rolled his eyes. "Yeah, yeah. Come on. Stiles is waiting."
Scott and I ran to Stiles' jeep parked a little ways away from the house. After an argument ensued about who gets to ride shotgun: me with the dress and heels or him with his half-cloth, half-tape suit that's one thread away from falling apart, I rode in the back and we were off to the dance.
Scott got off a few feet away from the school, and out of the sights of our fellow peers, to go sneak himself past the daunting cavalry that is the school administration and into the school, while Stiles parked the car in front of it. There, we met with Lydia and her date— Brandon. He's a sweet guy, all things considered. Smart, handsome, captain of the Basketball teams, or what passes for it nowadays, anyway. And a little shy.
"Lydia, you look incredible!" I exclaimed, running towards her, and we quickly snapped a few pictures of ourselves with her camera while our dates awkwardly stood by and watched.
"So do you, Beth." She replied after we looked at ourselves in her camera.
"Ooh, I love that! Send that to me."
A car squealed, bringing my attention to Jackson's Porsche that parked itself near Stiles' jeep. Jackson and Allison got out and Lydia put her camera away as they approached. She situated herself by Brandon's side, and I by Stiles.
"Jackson... You look handsome." Lydia commented when they got near us. Smugly, Jackson replied,
"Obviously." And to Brandon, after looking him up and down he said to him, "It's Hugo Boss."
I smiled at Allison before she was whisked away into the building by Jackson, looking like she was there against her will. With how much taller she was with heels next to Jackson, she tried her best to crouch, but it only made her look tall and uncomfortable. No doubt Jackson asked her to do that.
Meanwhile, Lydia was muttering to herself, "I don't care. I don't want compliments. I will not fall prey to society's desire to turn girls into emotional, insecure neurotics who pull up their dresses at the first flattering remark..."
"Well, I think you look beautiful." Stiles replied genuinely, making Lydia look at him doe-eyed and surprised as she quietly asked him,
"Really?"
Brandon coughed, snapping her out of her daze, long enough to see the smug smirk I had on my face. I told you he was great.
With Brandon in her arm, the both of them walked into the building together, pretending this whole interaction never occurred.
"Shall we?" Stiles asked, offering his arm to me like a true, awkward gentleman.
"Hold on." I said, removing the black jacket I had that protected me from the cold and covered the backless part of my dress. Both Allison and I, while having an hour to kill looking for a dress, eventually went back to the ones chosen for us by Peter. As much as I hated admitting it, the dress he chose did wonders to my figure.
I placed the jacket inside Stiles' Jeep, fixing my hair before turning around and facing my date. Stiles was looking at me with a sort of dazed look.
"You in there?" I asked, amused, snapping my fingers in front of his face. He took a shaky breath, nodding his head before replying.
"Sorry. It's just... You look beautiful." He replied breathlessly. I laughed, looking down at the ground as my cheeks blushed from his honest compliments. No girl was safe.
"Come on. I'm freezing. " I attached our arms together and we went inside to the gym together, which was now decorated to look like, well, a school dance.
There was the designated dance floor in the middle, already packed with students dancing to the music the band that was hired played; here and there were glowing white tables that held a pathetic amount of snacks and lots of red plastic cups; Jackson stood near one of them, giving out booze like the Saint that he was while Allison stood awkwardly near by, still crouching, getting completely ignored by her date and so-called friend; Lydia and Brandon sat on one of the cloth-covered tables, looking bored as ever; and there were no sign of Scott, so far.
"You wanna dance?" Stiles asked, gesturing towards the dance floor. With really nothing much else to do, I took the hand he offered and said,
"Let's do this."
Stiles and I must've danced for like an hour before my feet in these heels finally started to hurt and I asked for a break. And Stiles and I were such great dancers, the people around us even sort of gave us our own space to dance in. So far, it was turning out to be a good night.
We walked to one of the glowing tables and grabbed a bottle of water because the punch was most likely spiked by now. Only when I briefly look up did I see Allison there.
"Oh hey! How're you enjoying the party?" I asked. Allison sighed before pointing at something, somewhere behind us. Stiles and I turned our heads to look to see Jackson, red-faced and drunk, laughing at something one of his buddies said to him. How he wasn't yet thrown out by one of the teachers when he was so clearly shit-faced drunk was beneath me.
"Aww, come on. You don't need Jackson to have fun! He was never really any fun to begin with, anyway. I mean, you must've known this when you decided to go out with him, right?" Stiles said to Allison.
Allison scoffed, saying, "We're not going—"
"McCall! I see you!" We heard Coach yell, pointing his finger at Scott who was indeed there, standing in the bleachers. And before we knew what was happening, a game of cat and mouse soon began.
"Come here, buddy. Come here! McCall! Get outta my way!" Scott ran, Coach followed. Stiles, Allison, and I were having a hard time keeping track of Scott thanks to his superhuman speed, but Coach Finstock was relentless.
"McCall! It's a small gym, buddy! I'm gonna find you!"
Finally, I caught sight of Scott talking to Danny, urgently forcing him to participate in something with him. Finally, he got him to seemingly dance in the middle of the dance floor with him, to a slow and romantic song, just as Coach reached them.
"McCall! You're not supposed to— What the hell are you do-- What the hell are you doing?"
The music stopped and people stared.
"Yes, Coach?" Scott said innocently, pulling Danny closer to him as the people continued to watch. Coach, feeling the heat of their gazes on him and realizing what this must've looked like, quickly began to back-pedal.
"Okay, ho-ho-ho, ha-ha. Hold on, you— I was just saying he's not supposed to— I mean, I wasn't saying that he shouldn't— You guys don't think— You don't— I-I was—"
At this point, Stiles, Allison, and I were holding in our giggles. Scott saw us—and probably heard us—watching him and a smirk pulled up on his face.
Finally finding the silence and the attention to be unbearable, Coach yelled, "just dance, everybody! Just dance! Dance! It's a party!"
Finally, the music to the slow dance started playing again and Scott bid Danny farewell before heading towards where the three of us were standing.
"Hey guys." Scott greeted Stiles and I breathlessly. We each gave a nod in acknowledgement, I raising my waterbottle and Stiles, his solitary chip.
"What are you looking at, Greenberg?!" We heard Coach yell somewhere, but not one of us payed him any mind as Stiles and I watched Scott about to ask Allison to dance.
"Allison... "
"Yes." She immediately answered him. "I would love to dance with you."
"Aww..." Stiles and I voiced as Scott face slowly melted into a smile, making him blush and glare at us as he took Allison away to the dance floor.
"You wanna dance now too?" Stiles asked, finishing his chip and dusting his hands together. I was still kind of tired, but I nodded nonetheless.
With a sigh, I said, "okay," and took his hand.
"Please, calm yourself down. No need to get too excited." Stiles said sarcastically, making me laugh and lightly hit him in the stomach.
"Shut up!"
Stiles and I danced to the music the band was playing, my arms going around his neck while his hands rested themselves on each side of my waist. We were both staring at each other, smiling and blushing, and when I couldn't take the instensity of it anymore, I hid my face in his chest and we danced that way until the end of the song.
When the song started picking up again, Stiles and I finally took our well-deserved breaks. We were heading outside for some fresh air when we bumped into Jackson.
"Oh, sorry." I said, continuing to walk past when I was met with silence, and Stiles and I stopped. Normally, Jackson wouldn't let anyone get away with something like that. His ego was much too fragile for him to just let it go. Stiles and I stared at each other in confusion before looking back at Jackson, only to see him paler than usual and looking... a bit scared. A lot scared.
"What? What's wrong?" Stiles asked for the both of us. Jackson stammered, trying to say whatever it was he wanted to say as his eyes darted here and there, except for our own.
"Jackson, what did you do?" I demanded, my hand clapping him on the shoulder to get his attention. I wish I didn't because immediately after I did, I was met with a headache and a blinding sensation behind my eyes. Mr. Agent's face flashed before my eyes, and then Scott's, and then Allison's.
And there was Lydia's face with a look of pure terror. And then a monsters.
I wrenched my hand from his shoulder and I was back again in the school hallway with a pounding headache and difficultly breathing. Jackson stared at me with a guilty look, fumbling with something in his pocket before handing me a handkerchief. I took it and instinctively put it to my nose. Blood.
Lydia...
"Lydia!"
Like finally being let out of a cage with a gunshot ringing in the air, I bolted for the door heading out towards the field. Slamming the doors open, outside, in the night, I could just make out a body standing in the middle of the LaCrosse field, over a heap on the floor. Pink silk and red blood.
I could faintly hear someone yell my name but I didn't dare stop. I ran for her as though I could do something about her situation. The closer I got, the bloodier and gorier it got.
Lydia's body was at an awkward angle on the floor, her eyes were closed as her blood covered her like a blanket on the grass.
Before I could even reach her, Peter hovered over her body and growled at me when I got near. I jumped back, Stiles catching me from behind before I could fall. He wrapped his arms around me as I continued to stare at Lydia's body.
"Don't—don't kill her. Please." I begged, my voice shaky as I forced my body to not throw up the contents of my stomach.
"Of course not... " He said kindly, playing with Lydia's hair with his clawed finger. "Just tell me how to find Derek."
"W-what?" I breathed. His words were not registering in my brain.
"Tell me how to find Derek Hale." Peter repeated, slowly this time.
"We don't know that. How would we know that?" Stiles asked, lifting me up slightly to a standing position. I didn't matter. I immediately toppled over, my knees giving out.
"Because you're the clever one, aren't you? And you're the one who's soul can float out of their body. And because deception has a particularly acrid scent, Stiles."
Tell me the truth... or I will rip her apart."
"Look-look, we don't know, okay? I sw-swear to God, I have no idea—"
"TELL ME!" Peter yelled. I was useless. I whimpered, staring down at Lydia's body, fighting the urge in mine to run. Stiles did all the talking the rest of the conversation while I kept my mouth shut and the bile down.
"Okay, okay, okay, look... I-I think he knew—"
"Knew what?" Peter interrupted, getting more and more impatient.
"Derek, I think he... I think he knew he was gonna be caught." Stiles said, making me furrow my brow in confusion.
"What?" I muttered quietly, using all the breath and energy that I had and could.
"By the Argents?" Peter asked.
"Yeah..." Stiles responded.
"And?" Peter asked.
"When they were shot, he and Scott— I think he took Scott's phone." Stiles explained.
"Why?" Peter asked, and I knew why, but I couldn't say.
"They all have GPS now. So, if he still has it, and if it's still on... you can find him."
"W-we have to call someone." I managed to get out, crawling towards Lydia's body when Peter finally stood up and walked away. He was still near, wiping her blood from his mouth with a handkerchief.
"She's right. We can't just leave her here." Stiles argued.
"You don't have a choice, Stiles. You two are coming with me." Peter said.
"She'll die." I stated, lifting my head and looking him in the eye.
Peter sighed before saying, "call your friend. Tell Jackson where she is. That's all you get."
As selfish as this thought was, I wish I'd stayed at home.
Hi! Just message me if you want to be added to the tag list. Thanks! Also, Feedback. Yes. Love me some of that. Tell me what I can improve upon and I will listen to all of your suggestions with an open mind ;)
Warnings: Cursing, mention of dead bodies, fighting
Posted on: 3/9/22
After about twenty minutes of me just sitting in Coach's chair, staring at nothing as my brain tried to comprehend what Scott and I... technically just did, just when my brain was about to call it a day for me, I finally decided on the wise and educated conclusion—to pretend it never happened. Did I think it was the best course of action moving forward? Absolutely. Was it really? Not even remotely.
When I finally walked out onto the lacrosse field I was first greeted with the cool fresh air blowing onto my face, cooling the fiery blush on my cheeks. The second thing I was greeted with was someone yelling Danny's name in panic and concern.
I couldn't really see him from the distance I was standing at, and even less when all the other players crowded around him. Lydia grabbed my arm from behind me, surprising me, but she didn't wait for me to bitch to her about it as she ran to where everyone was, dragging me with her.
When we reached the spot near the goal where Danny was laying, there we saw him laying on his back with a bloody nose, looking concussed as the team paramedic hovered over him, helping him as best he could.
"Is he okay?" Lydia asked Jackson.
"It looks like he just has a bloody nose..." Jackson was saying but I didn't hear the rest of their conversation as I detached myself from Lydia's grip, walking over towards where Scott and Stiles were standing.
"Hey! What the hell happened?" I asked Stiles, standing next to him whilst Scott wandered away, not meeting my eyes.
"Scott kinda hit him a little too hard trying to shoot—" Stiles was saying before stopping suddenly, making me take my eyes away from Danny and stare at him in confusion. He was already staring at me, his eyes squinted with an unreadable expression on his face.
"What?" I asked him and he reached out his hand to touch my upper lip with his thumb. He swallowed, his expression hard when he said in an unusually deep voice,
"Your lipstick."
"My lipstick?" I asked again and he shook his head at me, his lips in a tight line, wordlessly walking away from me. I pulled my compact out from my purse and when I saw my reflection on the mirror, I saw that my lipstick had been smudged. I fixed it up while Lydia and I walked away, back towards our usual spot in the bleachers.
Somehow— and I didn't know how— somehow Stiles had figured it out. That something between Scott and I... happened. The "how" had always eluded me when it came to Stiles, but I doubt it really mattered.
Scott was getting chewed out by Coach when my eyes found Stiles standing a few feet away with some of the other players, glaring at Scott angrily. He must've felt me staring at him because he turned his angry look at Scott towards me, but it was only for a second before refusing to look at me again the entire practice.
He definitely knew.
"Stiles..." I called out to him, sitting beside him in his car while he drove me home. He ignored me, keeping his eyes on the road and staying silent. We hadn't talked since the field and his quietness was getting to me. I mean, he's Stiles! He's never quiet. He always has something to say...
"Stiles..." I sang, poking his cheek to pull out a smile. It did, but it was only for a second before he quickly killed it off, grabbing my hand and holding it down on his knee so I wouldn't do it again. Jokes on him, I have another one. And this time, I'm not gonna be so merciful.
"Haha—No, wait—STOP THAT!" Stiles yelled as I laughed, squirming under my touch as I tickled him on his side and in his neck. He had let go of my hand that he'd kept hostage by his knee and when he did, it gave me the power to use both, going full-force on my attack. The Jeep swerved a little because of his movements but thankfully we were all alone on the road. And I immediately stopped when it did. Stiles huffed, giving me a dirty side-eye, but other than that, he still didn't say a word to me. Not even to scold me.
"Come on, Stiles. Please talk to me." I begged but he only pressed his lips tighter in a firmer line. It made me frown and want to cry, which was why I kept silent during the remainder of the car ride until we finally reached my house.
Stiles killed the engine but refused to look at me or tell me to get out. He just let me stay inside his jeep and stare at him. It went on for two minutes until I finally decided to say something again.
"Scott kissed me." I said, testing the waters. I received no response so I tried again.
"I didn't kiss him back."
Finally, he looked at me. And the way he did, it was like he was purposefully staring into my soul.
"You... didn't?" Stiles asked me slowly and I smiled, shaking my head "no". After a minute of deep contemplation, he smiled back. A hesitant one, but it was better than nothing. Satisfied with that, I sighed in relief.
"Pick me up later?" I asked him, referring to our plans to help Scott during the full moon later. He nodded and I gave him one last smile before getting out of his Jeep and into my house. And once I got inside, I took a well-deserved nap.
"Scott?" Melissa called out to us, thinking it was Scott that had entered her house when in fact, it was actually me and Stiles. She quickly learned this when she rounded the corner and saw us standing by her door.
"Hi." I greeted and she smiled a wary smile.
"Hello, Liz. Stiles." She said, nodding towards Stiles before her eyes fell down to the key in his hand. "Key?"
"Yeah, it's the one I had made, so..." Stiles trailed off.
"That doesn't surprise me." Melissa said, looking at the both of us. "It scares me, but it doesn't surprise me."
"What's that?" Melissa asked, gesturing towards the bag Stiles had me hold while he opened the door.
"Uh, school project..." I said, though I myself didn't know the contents of the bag.
"Mmm. Guys, he's okay, right?" Melissa asked, referring to Scott, and Stiles and I looked at each other, not exactly sure what to say.
"He just doesn't talk to me that much anymore. Not like he used to." Melissa said sadly.
"Well, he's had a bit of a rough week..." Stiles said and I decided add,
"Yeah. And he's a hormonal teenage boy who's met a girl in the midst of his sexual awakening. Not exactly a conversation topic you have with your mom." I said and Melissa's eyes widened, quickly saying,
"Yeah. Yeah, no, I get it. Yeah. Um, okay. Uh, be careful tonight, you two."
"You, too." Stiles replied back, no longer invested in the conversation as Melissa was about to leave for work.
"Full moon." Melissa said randomly and my eyes widened as Stiles exclaimed a loud,
"What?"
Melissa was alarmed by our reaction but thankfully, she didn't comment on it.
"There's a full moon tonight. You should see how the ER gets— brings out all the nutjobs." Melissa explained, making me sigh with relief.
"Oh." Stiles and I let out simultaneously.
"Yeah." Melissa said.
"Right..." I said awkwardly, puckering my lips just to have something to do.
"You know, it's, um, actually where they came up with the word 'lunatic'." Melissa said to us, just before leaving and shutting the door behind her. Stiles and I looked at each other once she was gone and I smiled awkwardly, not knowing what to say. Stiles smiled back before gesturing towards the stairs, telling me to go first. I did and he followed closely behind.
Were things between the two of us still awkward and strained? Yes. Did we acknowledge that it was awkward and strained? Absolutely not.
Stiles opened Scott's door and entered first, myself not far behind. He opened the lights and I gasped, jumping away in fear when I saw Scott staring back at me from his seat in his recliner. Stiles did the same.
"Oh, my God! Dude, you scared the hell out of me! Your mom said you weren't home yet." Stiles exclaimed but Scott remained seated, completely unaffected by our reactions as he continued to look at us with the same, murderous look in his face.
"I came in through the window." Scott said blankly.
"Okay. Uh, well, let's get this set up. I want you to see what I bought." Stiles said, taking his bag from me and dumping it on the floor, rifling at the contents inside. I peeked at it over his shoulder as Scott said,
"I'm fine. I'm just gonna lock the door and go to bed early tonight."
"You sure about that? 'Cause you've got this kind of serial killer look going on in your eyes, and I'm hoping it's the full moon taking effect, 'cause it's really starting to freak me out." Stiles said nervously and I agreed, looking at Scott and assessing whether or not I can out run him in case he decided he wanted to kill me. I mean, if I pushed Stiles to him, I have a pretty good chance...
"I'm fine. You should go now." Scott said. Stiles and I looked at each other, formulating a plan between the two of us with just a look because there was no way in hell we were just gonna leave.
"All right. We'll leave. Come on, Stiles." I said, standing up from my kneeling position and urging Stiles pretendingly to do the same.
"Well, look, would you just at least look in the bag and see what I brought? You know, maybe you use it, maybe you don't. Sound good?" Stiles said and I watched Scott warily as he stood up, walking over and kneeling besides Stiles. He lifted the chains inside with one hand and I took a careful step back. He ignored me, only looking at Stiles.
"You think I'm gonna let you put these on and chain me up like a dog?" Scott said menacingly to Stiles.
"Actually, no..." Stiles replied before quickly grabbing his hand and hand-cuffing to his radiator. I quickly grabbed Stiles jacket after he was done, dragging him back as far as I could from Scott. He slid on the floor like a mop before I finally decided to let him go. He shot me a quick glare before standing up.
"What the hell are you doing?!" Scott yelled at us, clearly upset as he remained sitting down with his hand cuffed on the lower part of the radiator.
"Protecting you from yourself... and giving you some payback... for kissing Liz." Stiles said in between breaths and I turned my head to look at him, but he didn't look back as he left me in the room with Scott. I sat down, cross-legged on Scott's bedroom floor while he glared at me with his eyes, giving me a sadistic smirk at the same time. I didn't falter, not taking my eyes away from him as I sat a few steps away from him near his door.
Neither of us spoke as we both simply stared at each other until Stiles came back a few minutes later.
"I brought you some water." Stiles said to Scott. I stood up and rolled my eyes as I watched Stiles pour the water from the water bottle he brought— and into a dog bowl. Once the bottle was empty, he crumpled it up and threw it somewhere in the room, placing the bowl in front of him. I had already walked out of the room and once he'd walked away, only then did I see Scott's name painted on the bowl. At least now I know what Stiles did while I took my nap...
"I'm gonna kill you!" Scott said, throwing the bowl on Stiles' back. I watched his smug smirk turn into a furious frown before he turned around to face Scott, giving him a piece of his mind.
"You kissed her, Scott! Okay? You kissed Elizabeth. That's, like, the one girl that I've ev—" He said before cutting himself off, looking over his shoulder at me briefly before continuing.
"And, you know, the past three hours, I've been thinking, "It's probably just the full moon, you know? He doesn't even know what he's doing, and tomorrow, he'll be totally back to normal. He probably won't even remember what a complete dumbass he's been— a son of a bitch, a freaking unbelievable piece of crap friend"
"She kissed me." Scott said quietly.
"What?" I asked, not believing what I was hearing as I gave Scott an incredulous look that he ignored.
"...What?" Stiles asked as well, his voice sounding broken as he only kept his eyes on Scott.
"I didn't kiss her." Scott said, a sadistic smile forming in his face . "She kissed me."
"Stiles... He's lying." I said to him as he walked by me, exiting the room and leaning against the wall outside Scott's room, by his doorway. With tears in his eyes, he refused to look at me, or so much as acknowledge my presence as he slid against the wall, only listening to Scott.
"She would have done a lot more, too. You should have seen the way she had her hands all over me. She would have done anything I wanted." Scott said menacingly and I kneeled in front of Stiles to tell him, begging him,
"It's not true, Stiles. Listen to me. Tell me you know he's lying..."
"ANYTHING!" Scott yelled and that's when I finally snapped.
"SHUT UP" I yelled back and after a moment of silence, Scott chuckled before it quickly turned into a full-on laugh. I stood up and slammed the door shut as he continued. I sunk back on the floor, leaning against the wall across Stiles as I placed my head in my hands, listening to Scott laugh and Stiles sniffle as he cried. Stiles won't talk to me, Scott's gone insane, and I'm as helpless as ever. This went on for God knows how long until finally, Stiles said quietly,
"I know."
"What?" I asked, confused as I raised my head from my arms to look at him. He only stared at the floor, not looking at me.
"I know he's lying... " Stiles said to me, still refusing to look me in the eye.
"Oh... " Was all I said before I asked, "Then... Why are you mad at me?"
"I'm not—" Stiles said quickly, loudly, before cutting himself off and whispering, "I'm not mad at you."
Angered by that, angry tears started forming in my eyes as I spat the word, "Bullshit," from my mouth.
He looked up at me, at the tears running on my cheeks as I stared back at him and watched him with a frown on my face. His face looked like he was contemplating on doing something while his heart broke into a million pieces as he watched me cry in front of him.
"Guys, please let me out." Scott said, making me break my staring contest with Stiles as I quickly wiped the tears on my face, feeling like I'd been caught doing something I wasn't supposed to.
"It's the full moon, I swear. You know I wouldn't do any of this on purpose. Please, Stiles, let me out. It's starting to hurt. It's not like the first time. It's the full moon... it's Allison breaking up with me... I know... that it's not just taking a break. She broke up with me. And it's killing me. I feel completely hopeless." Scott said and I sniffled, my heart breaking for Scott as Stiles leaned forward to place a comforting hand on my knee. We both shared a look of understanding.
"Just, please— let me out." Scott begged and I squeezed my eyes shut, fresh tears falling down onto the wooden floor.
"We can't." Stiles said, his voice sounding strained and tortured, which only made me cry even harder.
"No, no, no!" Scott yelled, groaning in pain. I wiped my tears again, standing up slightly to crawl over to Stiles and sit between his legs. I did it with no warning but he knew what to do. He opened his arms for me to snuggle into and encircled his arms protectively around my body, his hand holding my head to his chest as we listened to Scott scream.
"AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH"
He screamed in pain, pulling his cuffed hand as Stiles and I listened to it clang before finally, so suddenly, it stopped. I slowly lifted my head from Stiles chest. He and I looked at each other, then at the door. Stiles' arms fell from around me and we both slowly stood up as I called for him.
"Scott?"
"Scott, are you okay?" Stiles asked as well and just as I was about to open the door that will reveal to me the answer, Stiles stopped me by grabbing my hand and gently pulling me back. I gave him a reassuring smile and he let go of my hand before I finally opened the door.
"Scott?" I called out again, only to see he was no longer in the room. What was left was the handcuffs — now broken — and a few droplets of blood.
"Oh no... "I said as Stiles tugged on my hand, forcing me to run with him to his Jeep. Immediately, the first thing I did was turn on the police comm, checking if there had been any suspicious incidents possibly caused by Werewolf activities. But there was nothing—Beacon Hills was quiet.
We drove around aimlessly until we came across a bunch of police cars and ambulances on the same spot we were just hanging out in last night. That night when we drank Stiles' dad's Jack. Stiles parked his car and got out before immediately started looking for his dad.
"Dad!" He yelled, grabbing a guy's shoulder and forcing to turn around to see if he was his dad. He wasn't. I watched from a few feet away as he twisted and turned, weaving his way around people that I could barely keep up, until he came across a man— or a woman— in a gurney, covered in a sheet. I saw his dad around the same time he saw Stiles. He walked over him and called his name,
"Stiles!" Mr. Stilinski yelled, causing Stiles to turn around and look. Once Stiles saw his dad, safe and unharmed, he walked over and hugged him, his whole body immediately unwinding from the tight stress it was put in. Mr. Stilinski looked at me questioningly over Stiles' shoulder but I only shrugged, giving him a hesitant smile as I didn't know what to say. I must've looked so coy.
Thankfully, a phone call saved me from having to explain Stiles' behavior. It was from an unknown number. I answered it anyway.
"Hello?" I asked.
"Scott's at his house. He's fine and he's got everything under control. For now."
"Derek?" I asked, confused as to how he got my number.
"Yeah. It's me." Derek replied but before I could even say anything else, he'd already hung up. Stiles and I checked up on Scott in his house. He apologized for being such a dick, now that he was no longer under the influence of the full moon, and of course, Stiles and I ended up forgiving him. He's our best friend. Things between the three of us were still a bit... strained, but if we were gonna beat whatever the supernatural world threw at us, we were gonna need each other to do it together. We needed to have each other's backs.
We weren't children, anymore. We couldn't be petty and hold grudges about something that happened in the past when people's lives were at stake and people could die. Like they have been for a while now, around us. We made it our responsibility to save everyone— or at least, try, and the three of us were gonna see it through. Maybe even after Scott gives up his powers.
The very next day, the three of us acted and pretended like yesterday never happened. We didn't speak of it. No one mentioned it. We all silently agreed it was a thing from the past whilst sweeping it under a rug, with the intention meant to forever be forgotten. Because while we weren't children anymore, we also weren't adults.
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"Allison... when you said you needed to stop for an errand before we went shopping... a five-mile hike in the woods was not what I was expecting." Lydia said as we walked, the both of us following wherever it was Allison wanted to go.
It was after school, and Lydia dragged me out of Stiles' Jeep to hang out with her and Allison. Even after I declined their offer through text. But I suppose hiking in the woods and shopping for a dress for Winter Formal is better than babysitting Jackson.
Jackson gave Scott three days—now two— for the bite, in exchange for Allison whilst he, unknowingly, became part of the Argent’s watchlist as their number one suspect for the role of the Beta; due to Kate seeing the claw marks on his neck, which were actually somehow caused by Derek.
So now, the two of them—Scott and Stiles— were probably out somewhere trying to protect Jackson, and mostly certainly, stalking him. The three of us were just having the time of our lives.
"Before I forget, I wanted to ask if you were okay with something..." Allision said, and Lydia and I looked at each other, not knowing which of us she was addressing as she had her back to the both of us.
"Jackson invited me to the winter formal." Allision stated, which was of no surprise to me already, as Scott had already told Stiles and I about it.
"Did he?" Lydia asked, trying to sound unbothered, and failing.
"Uh-huh. Just as friends. But I just wanted to make sure you're okay with it first." Allision said, her voice almost sounding... smug. What's wrong with her?
"Sure. As long as it's just friends." Lydia said, her lips slightly pursed in what I assumed to be of either annoyance, or jealousy. I tried feeling for her emotions, but it was like after that incident at the school, whatever it was inside me that made me capable of that ability, just... shut down. I knew I was still capable of it; the same way I knew I was capable of making my hands glow like at the hospital. I couldn’t explain how— but I knew. It was innate.
"Well, yeah. I mean, it's not like I would take him to the coach's office during lacrosse practice to make out with him or anything..." Allison said nonchalantly, with just a hint of malice in her voice, making me stumble and almost fall to the ground in shock. I had told her what had happened, a few days after it did— how Scott kissed me— after I got the go-signal from Scott to tell her; which I'd achieved only after many practices with him as to how I was to say it.
As easier as it would be, it’s not like I could just tell her it was the full moon.
We agreed that the story went like this: we were both stressed and emotional—what with being chased by a Killer on a murderous spree, high school, the upcoming exams, my family drama and his breakup—that we both sort of fell into it, finding comfort in each other's company. But after I clarified for the both of us that we both felt absolutely nothing even resembling romantic feelings for each other, and that we pulled away immediately, I figured she'd understand. I expected her to be upset, which she was, but at the time, she had handled the situation with grace and understanding, and the days that followed after.
So, what’s change? Why was she suddenly being so...hostile?
Lydia and I both stopped and looked at each other for a moment, feeling anxious at how odd Allison was acting. One thing I knew for sure, though: she’d figured something out. She was on to something—or someone.
We continued on with our trek in the woods, going wherever it was we were going as I found myself wishing I was sitting in the comfort of Stiles’ Jeep, with his and Scott's presence near me.
"Hey, come on, Jackson— you're way too pretty to be out here all by yourself." Stiles said, making me suddenly look up in utter confusion.
"Stiles?"
"What?" Both Lydia and Allison asked me, but I ignored them as I turned my head to look around us. They copied my movements, but when I didn't see Stiles— or anyone around for that matter, near us— I concluded it was just my mind playing tricks on me.
"Nothing. Sorry, I thought I heard someone."
Lydia and Allison both shared a look I couldn’t quite understand, before resuming their walk. After taking a second to myself to look around one last time, I followed after them, yet again.
"So... Lydia; finally decided who you're taking to Winter Formal?" I asked, just to have something to fill the silence with, besides the crunching of the dead leaves under our boots.
Lydia feigned a dramatic sigh. "Hmm. I don't know. There's just so much to choose from. But I have narrowed it down to two people, though."
"Who...?"
"Brandon and Kent."
"Wow.” I commented, as images of the two aforementioned boys flashed into my head. “Isn't Kent a Senior, though?"
"He is. But after Jackson, I decided I'm done dating boys. For my sake, I need to start dating men."
"I suppose you're right. But I'd go with Brandon, though." Lydia looked to me questioningly, to which I whispered to her, "Jackson's always been jealous of him."
"Hmm." Lydia hummed in consideration, nodding her head and puckering her full lips as she thought over the idea of it.
Finally, Allison stopped, pulling her backpack off her shoulder and placing it on the ground. She kneeled next to it, taking out her bow, a headless arrow, and a bulbous arrowhead.
"What does that do?" Lydia asked, as Allison screwed in the arrowhead to the tip of the shaft.
"We're about to find out..." Allison stood up and connected the arrow to her bow, before drawing it back and letting it go. It hit the tree she aimed for, and the arrowhead bursted into an explosion of sound and light, making us all jump back in surprise.
With horror, I realized it was the same kind of arrow I’d seen Mr. Argent use to attack Derek during that night at the iron works.
"What the hell was that?" Lydia asked, scared, as she looped her arm with mine.
"I don't know..." Allison muttered, staring at the tree she shot, which was now partly on fire. Lydia let go of my arm, seemingly coming back to herself as she clapped her hands and said sarcastically,
"Well, that was fun! Any more lethal weapons you wanna try out?"
Before any of us could respond to that, a snap of a branch caught our attention, making us all simultaneously turn our heads around to the source of the sound.
"Because I thought I heard something." Allison told her, removing her protective glove.
"So... what if you heard something?" Lydia asked.
"So, I want to find out what that something is." Allison told her, throwing her glove on top of her bag.
"Don't worry— it's probably nothing." I reassured Lydia, giving her a smile, as Allison started walking away to investigate.
"Well, what if that nothing is something, and that something is dangerous?" Lydia asked, making Allison stop. She didn't bother turning around as she answered.
"Shoot it."
Lydia and I looked at each other as Allison started walking again, then quickly fumbled to look inside her bag. We sighed with relief when we found two more arrows inside. Not that we knew how to use them, but it's nice to know they're there.
"What about you?" Lydia asked.
"What?"
"Who're you taking to the dance?" Lydia asked me, flipping her hair so it sat on her back instead, and away from her face. I shrugged, placing Allison's bow on the ground as I sat down.
"I don't know. I mean, I've been asked out by Matt; some other guys; Isaac, but... "
"They're not Stiles." Lydia said, hitting the nail perfectly.
"Yeah... " I said and Lydia sighed, gently rubbing her forehead to avoid wrinkles.
"Beth... Is this boy even worth it. I mean, no offense to him but you know could do so much better, right?"
I shrugged, not knowing how else to respond. Again, Lydia sighed, then touched my shoulder while crouching down, refusing to sit on the dirt ground and risk ruining her designer clothes in any way.
"I'm going to call Brandon and tell him 'yes', and I'm going to give you Kent's number to call. Good?"
I gave Lydia a smile, patting her hand as I nodded 'yes'.
Soon, Allison came back, ripping the arrow she shot from the tree, and standing next to us again. I grabbed her bow as we stood up, handing it back to her.
"So, what was it?" I asked her. She shook her head with a smile.
"Nothing. Just... a curious, but friendly, squirrel." Allison said, grabbing her glove and placing it inside her bag. After she was done, she looked to Lydia and I with a happy smile on her face— a complete 180 to how she was acting before.
"So... Shopping?"
We shopped, but didn't really find any dresses we liked at the stores we went to. We promised to try again, tomorrow. I got myself some new shoes, though; and a few tops I like; a pair of very flattering jeans. And all-in-all, it was a very good day.
Allison dropped me off to my house—since her house was closer to mine— and immediately after I went inside, I was greeted with the smell of home cooked food, and love.
"Is that Stroganoff I smell?" I asked, sprinting towards the kitchen with my bags of clothes bouncing beside me, and my dad laughed, taking something out of the oven and placing it on the counter. He gently kicked the oven door closed, pulling the gloves off of his hands to stare at me with a lovingly smile.
"And Chicken Mushroom Julienne. Exactly how my mom used to make them." He stared at the bags I had on either side of me, raising his eyebrow in question. "Shopping?"
"Winter Formal." I answered.
"What'd you get?" My dad asked. I shrugged and answered,
"Not a dress."
My dad chuckled, as though he’d already expected that answer.
"Well, get that to your room, already. I'll set the plates for us, and then we can eat. I have news to tell you. Good news." He said, opening the cabinet where we kept our plates. I walked upstairs to my room to do as he'd said and just as I opened my door, my phone rang with Scott's ringtone. Can you guess what it was?
I was a Teenage Werewolf by The Cramps. A song I picked—and liked— after I'd specifically searched for Werewolf Songs, just for him.
I chuckled at my own ingenuity, answering Scott's call.
"What's—"
"Liz! I need your help!" Scott's panicked voice yelled, wiping the smile from my face.
"Scott? What's wrong?" I asked, worried, and he answered.
"It's Peter. He's got my mom!"
"WHAT?!"
"Yeah!"
"Well...Call the police!"
"No! Wait, no—I can’t. He didn't kidnap her. She went with him. She thinks he's a normal guy; A-a Medical Rep that came into the hospital. They're on a date and they just left and Stiles' not answering his phone and— Please, just hurry!"
I dropped my bags and ran down stairs, heading for the door leading to the garage and not giving my dad an explanation when I passed him by. I ran to my car, quickly entering it and not bothering closing the door as I first fumbled inside my handbag for my car keys.
"Where the hell is— AHA!" I inserted the key and started the engine. When I looked up, I saw my dad there, looking at me with a confused and sad expression on his face.
"Dad, I'm sorry. I can't explain right now but I really have to go. I would never pass up Stroganoff unless it was an emergency! You know that. Please, I'll explain later. I promise." Lies. But it's not like I could just tell him the truth.
After a moment, he nodded, then took something out of his pocket. It was his garage door remote. The overhead door lifted and I closed my car door shut, yelling a quick, but heartfelt 'thank you' as I drove off.
I took the dark, scary— and probably illegal— shortcut in the woods, driving like a maniac with my heart beating out of my chest, due to the combined emotions of panic, fear, and guilt. And it only beat faster when something fast ran in front of my car, making me hit the brakes just before I ran over it. I wanted to say it was only a dog, maybe a wolf, but in truth, to me, it looked more like a coyote. Not that I got a chance to get a good look at it.
"SHIT! Fucking hell!" I exclaimed, resuming my fast pace while I called Stiles on my phone.
"Hey. Look, Liz, I'm really busy. Can you and Scott just—"
"Stiles! I'm picking you up." I said, then cussed when I hit a huge bump that scared me even more on my already scary, bumpy and unsteady ride. "Fuck!"
"Liz?" Stiles asked, his voice sounding concerned and confused.
"I'm taking the Devil's shortcut. I'll pick you up at your house and explain on the way." I said, hanging up as I increased the speed of my car, praying I don't hit anyone, or anything, on the way.
I dialed Scott's number just as I stopped in front of Stiles' house. He quickly got outside and shut the door, running towards my car and getting inside.
"What is it? What's wrong?" He quickly asked, just as Scott answered the phone.
"Hello?" He asked, and I gave the phone to Stiles.
"Ask him where he drove off to and what the car looks like." I commanded, driving to Scott's house as that seemed to be the wisest choice. And as it turned out, it was also the correct one.
"Scott says they're on Keen Street, near Jackson's house, and he thinks they're heading for the highway. Oh! A-and that he's driving a black car." Stiles said and I sped up, now knowing which direction to go.
"How the hell does he know this? Did he put a GPS on her or something?" I asked incredulously, my mind on overdrive at the sudden turn of events from what I thought would've been a normal day.
"No— Scott says he can hear them." Stiles told me, and I huffed, saying mostly to myself,
"Werewolves. Of course."
I heard Stiles chuckle but I tried focusing on my driving instead. I had to blink away pictures— visions I was having as I drove my car. My attention—my present—being split into two, like a movie playing over one another, fighting for the audience's attention.
"Let's go, shall we. Come on. It'll be fun, I promise."
A familiar, unfamiliar voice said to me, scaring me even more as no one, other than Stiles and I, were here with us. No one we could see.
I shook my head to get rid of the voice.
"Hold on.” Stiles told Scott on the phone. “ Lizzy... Are you alright?" Stiles asked me, and I spared a quick glance his way.
"I'm fine. Just... feeling weird." I said distractedly, going around a car.
"Maybe you should pull over and I can drive inste—"
"No! No, I'm fine. I'm fine, don't worry." I reassured him as I blinked hard, fighting away the flashes of people’s faces, all unknown to my mind, yet somehow familiar.
A car honked at us as I once again, passed it, and swerved in front of it.
"Oh, come on Laurel. We're just having fun. Aren't we, Liz?" Again, that voice.
I breathed slowly, inhaling in through my nose and exhaling out of my mouth as I tried calming my nerves, my arms shaking uncontrollably as I gripped the steering wheel, trying to get it to stop.
"Liz." Stiles called out, touching my shoulder. Just before he did, I saw a black car parked on the side of the rode. I didn't mean for what happened next to happen, but it just sort of did. In my defense, it was out of my control.
"Whoo! Isn't this fun!" A young woman yelled, herself now sitting on the front of the car as I found myself somehow transported to sit on the back. She had brown hair, the same color as mine but tied in a tight, neat bun with a pink scrunchie.
"I-I don't think this is a good idea—" I said, sounding small, but was cut off by the lady now driving the car— a different car, on a very different day.
"Oh, come on. This is a terrific idea. You ready?" She asked me, her intense green eyes staring into mine through the rear-view mirror, and I turned my eyes to where hers should've been, only to see we were about to drive off a cliff.
I looked to her again through the rear-view mirror, only to see she still had her eyes on me instead of the road in front of her. Like she was waiting for me to do something— expecting something of mine I couldn't give her, nor did I know how.
"No. I-I'm not ready. Please stop." I said, again my voice sounding small. She still stared at me instead of stopping, her eyes slowly—eerily—smiling at me.
"Mammy, please STOP!" I yelled, more scared than I've ever been in my entire life, but it only seemed to make her smile widen, a crazy look in her eyes. She accelerated, making me scream my lungs out in fear as we drove past the edge, then started falling off the cliff.
"NOOO!!!"
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I crashed my car against the black car that was parked on the side of the road, effectively pulling me out of my daydream, if you could even call it that. Breathing heavily, I turned to see Stiles, whom was in the same state as mine, and breathlessly asked him the question.
Which Melissa answered for us.
"Aww, are you kidding me? YOU GUYS!" She yelled, making us both jump from the fear of her wrath as she slammed her car door closed, walking around to see the damage done to Peter's car. We both got out of my car as well to see my hood—smoking and dented. The same went for Peter's rear.
"Mrs. McCall?" Stiles asked innocently.
"Yes!" Melissa yelled, angry and exasperated. I pulled my jacket closer to my body when I turned around to see people behind us getting out of their cars to watch and listen. And I felt... exposed as the headlights of my car illuminated us three, like our very own spotlight. I kept my face from them, keeping my head down as I listened to Stiles and Melissa's conversation.
"Wow, this is-this is just crazy. What a coincidence, huh Liz?" Stiles said to me, nudging my shoulder, and I imitated the same surprised smile on his face— or tried to anyway.
"Y-yeah..." I said, my heart not really in the role I was casted in.
"Ha. Ha." Melissa laughed mockingly.
"I mean, I do not know what happened. You guys just came out of nowhere—" Stiles lied, badly, but I had no room to judge as I wasn't of any help.
"Came out of nowhere? We were parked on the side of the road, Stiles!"
"How crazy is that? I mean, we should probably call the cops, you know? Do like, an accident report thing?" Stiles said, when another voice decided to join in on the party.
"I don't think that's necessary." Peter said, walking over to us, and Stiles was quick to react, standing in front of me as his way of protecting me from the wolf in sheep's clothing—who was also wearing leather.
"Are you sure?" Stiles gritted, looking at him as his hands balled into fists. Then he turned his head to Melissa and said to her, "I think I'm feeling a little whiplash..."
"Whiplash??? You hit us!" Melissa screamed incredulously as I watched Peter walk away.
"I don't know... There's something definitely wrong with my neck..." Stiles said and touched his neck for added effect. Melissa huffed at him, then turned her head to look at me. I looked down, refusing to meet her eyes as I pulled my jacket tighter around my body, trying my best to make myself look small.
"And what do you have you have to say for yourself, hmm?" Melissa asked me, her voice sharp and unforgiving, and it was the last straw for me as the dam keeping my tears at bay, collapsed.
It first started off as a train of tears that wetted my cheeks, then came a sob I was barely able to suppress.
"I-I'm...s-s-sorry." I cried, keeping my head down and shutting my eyes closed, wishing I was anywhere else but here. Stiles hugged me, and I freely cried in the protective cover his arms provided around me.
"I don't know what happened—" I whimpered, but Stiles shushed me, rubbing my back comfortingly.
"It's okay, it's okay." He told me but I shook my head against his neck. Nothing was okay. I haven’t felt this way since...
I couldn’t even remember.
"No!" I shouted, pulling my head from his shoulder to look at him. "I was there one moment,” I said, pointing to my car, “I was there, d-driving the car, paying attention to the road and then next I wasn't there anymore. I-was—I was just.. "
"Hey! Shh." Stiles, with his one arm still around me, lifted his hand to wipe the tears that fell from my wide, panic-blown eyes as I tried catching my breath. "Don't talk, okay. Just breathe. Breathe, baby, breathe."
I tried, listening to him talk, but it didn't help as I continued to wheeze, not understanding what was happening to me as the intense and uncontrollable pounding in my chest made it hard for me to breathe. Not to mention my brain just about ready to explode. Or feels like it, anyway.
"Okay, Sweetie. You're hyperventilating. Calm down, okay. Breathe. Think of something else. Focus your mind somewhere else." Melissa was saying, her voice no longer angry but rather concerned, but still controlled—like that of a mother’s, or a nurse. Or in this case, both.
"I c-c-can't." I sobbed, feeling light headed, "I can't—" I whispered, before Stiles' lips on mine cut me off. Shocked, my lips didn't move as my eyes widened like saucers, before slowly falling shut. My lips simply sat against his before his lips slowly pulled away from mine with a tiny smack.
His hand had crept up to the side of my face, his arm tighter around me than before. I slowly opened my eyes to see him carefully looking at me.
"You kissed me." I whispered.
"How are you feeling?" Stiles asked, and it was then that I realized I could finally breathe again.
"I—" I started, before the realization hit me. "I feel fine." I said breathlessly, my voice filled with wonderment, and Stiles chuckled lowly, caressing my cheek with his thumb.
"You were having a panic attack." He told me. "When I kissed you, you held your breathe and took your mind off of the fact that you were having a panic attack. Therefore, it calmed you down." He factually stated and I listened, nodding my head when he was done.
"Hmm...” I mumbled mindlessly, playing with his collar when a thought that made me smile surfaced my muddled brain. “Is that what you did with Scott?" I asked jokingly and he laughed, throwing his head back as he did, before shaking his head at me with a smile.
"No. No, I, uhh, I gave him his inhaler to make him think he was having an asthma attack when he was really having a panic attack." He said, his hand leaving my cheek to gesture. "So... "
His hand swiped the hair blocking my face, placing it between my ear, before gently falling back again to rest on my back. It was then that we heard the loud siren of a police car.
It parked itself in front of Peter's car, and a Deputy— Deputy Tara Graeme— got out of it to talk to the two adults, whom had migrated back to stand beside their car to converse amongst themselves. The people that had stopped to check out the commotion slowly lost interest, walking and driving away, one-by-one, until it was just the four of us and Deputy Graeme, there.
After a long full hour of taking our statements, and participating in other legal matters involved, two tow trucks came to take both our cars away. Deputy Graeme offered to drive both Peter and Melissa back home, and since Scott wouldn’t—or couldn’t— answer his phone to use her car to come pick her up, she gladly accepted. Peter politely refused, saying his house was near walking distance.
Mr. Stilinski was still at the station, but had called Stiles to make sure he was okay. I called my dad as well to come pick me up at Stiles’ house. Tara interjected, saying he didn’t have to as she could just drive me all the way home, but knowing just how far that was to the station, my dad decided he was going to pick me up. And so, after dropping Melissa off to her’s, and saying our goodbyes to her, Tara drove to Stiles’ house and didn’t leave until she was sure we were safely inside.
“Hey, you want anything?” Stiles asked as he headed straight for the kitchen, while I sat myself in their living room couch.
“No, thanks.” I yelled back. I sighed as I let my body sink into the couch, closing my eyes and feeling myself relax in the silence of his house. Until it was, of course, rudely interrupted by the ringing of someone calling me on my phone.
When I saw it wasn’t my dad, I groaned before loudly complaining, “Who the hell calls in the middle of the night like this?”
I put my phone on silent but I let it ring beside me, not wanting to be rude, and making the caller think I was already asleep; which was a reasonable assumption he should have considered before calling me—or anyone, for that matter— at this time of night. But also because I didn’t want to pick up the phone, as I knew why he was calling, and I didn’t yet know how to respond.
"Kent...McNeil? Isn't he a Senior?" Stiles asked from behind me.
“Yeah.” I responded with my eyes closed, my head laid back on his couch. I turned my head to see Stiles standing behind me with a gallon of milk in his hand, and a milk moustache on his face.
“Stiles, that’s disgusting.” I commented tiredly, but he only continued to stare at my phone. Furrowing my brow, I looked back down at my phone to see what had got him so interested about it, but all I saw was Kent’s name before the call finally ended, and that was that.
“Umm...Why is Kent McNeil calling you?” Stiles asked, walking around to sit beside me, placing his gallon of milk on his lap.
I sighed before explaining, “Lydia gave me his number to call, but I guess she also gave him mine.”
"Why?" Stiles asked quietly.
I shrugged before answering, "Winter Formal. It’s in two days and I still don't have a date."
"Weren't you asked out already? I thought you were gonna go with Isaac— or creepy Matt."
"He's not creepy, Stiles.’’ I chuckled. “He's actually really nice."
He rolled his eyes, then tapped his fingers against his milk gallon, avoiding my eyes as he muttered,
"You’re too good for them, anyway."
I sucked in a quiet breath as I felt my heart beat faster the second time this night, this time for an entirely different reason
"Well...Who're you going with?" I asked as nonchalantly as I could. Stiles shrugged, answering quietly,
"I— I don't... I dunno..."
Taking a deep breathe in through my nose, I decided to finally take a leap. If he wasn't going to make the first move— or any move at all— then it was up to me to initiate contact. And if he rejects it— if he decides he just wants to stay friends... I'll be heartbroken for sure, but I'll live. And I'll live with no regrets. Our friendship was strong enough to survive the potential fallout. And if this Werewolf telanovela we found ourselves in proved anything, it will only make it stronger.
"Well, do you want to go with me?" I asked, and growing bolder I added. "As each other's dates?"
He looked up at me with an absolutely shocked expression on his face, and immediately I regretted it. I shouldn't have said anything. What the hell was I thinking? I'm so stup—!
"Yeah!" He shouted, making me jump in surprise, before he quieted himself down, saying "Yeah. I-I'd love to go with you. As dates. As each other's dates. Not—not the fruit." He said shyly, a fiery blush kissing his cheeks as he visibly cringed at what he’d said: which, of course, made laugh.
We both smiled at each other, happy and satisfied to just stay in that moment forever, when we realized how close our faces actually were. Stiles coughed uncomfortably, turning his face away from mine while I created some distance between the two of us.
"So," Stiles started, his voice cracking, which made me fake a cough to cover up my laugh. “When you said, umm, dates, right? Uhh, we go as each other’s dates.”
“Right.” I said, deciding to help him understand before quickly adding, “Not the fruit.”
“N-no. Not the fruit.” Stiles chuckled before he continued on with what I had assumed to have been a question. “Did you mean that, as in, we’d be dating, or we’d only be going to this dance as each other's dates, but as friends?”
I slowly eliminated the distance between the two of us again, leaning in as I whispered to him like I was telling him secret, “Well... What would you want it to be?"
I licked my lips as I waited for him to respond, but it only seemed to distract him as whatever words he had planned on telling fell trapped in his throat— words so close to being let out into the world. His mouth fell ajar as his eyes travelled from my eyes, then to my lips. His focus on my lips made me nervous, which, in turn, triggered my habit to bite into it.
And it was the first time I saw, and realized, the effect I had on him. He exhaled a heavy breath, wetting his own lips as I watched his eyes visibly darken before travelling back to mine.
“Friends, I guess.” Stiles answered, disappointing me, but not for long as he added, “I mean, it’s not like we’ve kissed before or anything, have we?
I was quickly reminded of the events that occurred that night, leading up to our kiss, but it didn’t last long as Stiles pulled me back to the present, his very presence demanding it.
He bowed his head as his hand found its way back home to the side of my face, his eyes alternating between staring into mine and my lips, silently asking for permission—for my consent.
My hand travelled to rest on his shoulder before climbing its way up the side of his neck, caressing his skin before finally resting on his nape; getting a thrill of my own when I saw him shiver from my touch.
I gently pulled his neck down while simultaneously lifting my head up, our eyes honing in to each other's lips. I wanted this. And I didn’t need any magical powers to know Stiles wanted this, as well. Still, no matter how starved we were of each other, we both took our time, enough to let each other know the other can pull back whenever they want to, for whatever reason that may be. Whether it was a change of heart or a change of mind.
It was the right thing to do, but I almost wished we hadn’t done it, for when our lips were just about to touch, the doorbell rang.
Stiles and I both sighed a disappointed sigh, staring in each other’s eyes as we wondered whether or not we can simply forget about whoever was outside the door. We knew we couldn’t. And once we both came to that conclusion, we both hesitantly pulled away from each other as we tried our best to ignore the emotion burning in our chest; and that feeling in the pit of our stomachs.
I grabbed my phone as I stood whilst Stiles set his milk down on the coffee table, which had apparently somehow sat on his lap the entire time. We shared a laugh at that. I walked behind Stiles as he headed for the front door, and when he opened it, my dad greeted us with a tired smile.
“If this is how you drive, I’m gonna give your gas money to Stiles to pay for driving you to school, instead.”
“I-I know you're joking, but I actually do need the money. I mean, your house is quite far, so...” Stiles trailed off.
My dad and I chuckled before he handed Stiles a folded paper bill in his hand, too quick for either Stiles and I to see.
“There you go, son. Come on, Liz.” My dad said, holding his arm out to me, and with a quick goodbye to Stiles, I walked out of his house, only to be immediately welcomed by my dad as he draped his arm across my shoulder.
“Goodnight, Stiles.” My dad said as he turned us around to walk towards his car.
“Goodnight.” Stiles politely greeted back, making me turn my head around to look at him. With the only light being the one inside his house, he gave me a smile, telling me how much he adored me, communicating how much he loved me. And that burning feeling in my chest? I couldn't ignore it any longer.
Keeping in mind that my dad was present, I gently detached myself from his hold before quickly running back to Stiles. He automatically opened his arms for me and rested his hands on my hips when I stopped in front of him, just outside his door. He looked down at me with a confused smile, one I couldn’t see transform into a shocked one, when I leaned forward and kissed him on the cheek.
“Goodnight.” I whispered to him with a smile, before just as quickly running back to my dad. I ignored his stare as we walked back to his car, hoping he would drop the subject for now.
Once I got in the car, I sensed a quick change in mood. I imagined my dad not being happy with me crashing my car, but this was different. He was different. He wasn't angry— he was serious. And I honestly can't decide which was worse.
"We need to talk." He told me, and I sensed whatever it was he was going to tell me would change my life forever— if I didn’t already know, or hadn’t already figured out, what some of them were.
"Did you get the picture? Scott asked us through Stiles’ phone, talking about the picture he sent us of Allison's necklace. After Danny and Lydia had cracked the mystery for us of the 'who' that sent the text, the three of us were now at the 'where', parked outside the Hospital in Stiles' Jeep. Lydia left after saying I owed her and Danny left happily, no questions asked.
"Yeah, we did, and it looks just like the drawing." I answered, staring at the screen of my own phone at the picture Scott sent us of Allison's necklace.
Despite Stiles' phone already being put on speaker, Derek still grabbed Stiles' hand that was holding it and held it close to his mouth, unintentionally pulling hard enough to hurt.
"Hey, is there something on the back of it? There's gotta be something— an inscription, an opening, something..." Derek said to the phone to Scott while Stiles repeatedly muttered a quiet,
"Ow, ow, ow, ow..."
And while I may still have been a little angry at him, through the backseat I gently grabbed Derek's hand that was holding Stiles' awkwardly bent arm, easing his hold of him to a more comfortable one.
"No, no, the thing's flat. And, no, it doesn't open. There's nothing in it, on it, around it, nothing. And where are you? You're supposed to be here. You're first line." Scott reminded Stiles; his voice heard along with the noise of a crowd in the background.
"Where the hell is Bilinski???" We all heard Coach yell through the phone.
"Man, you're not gonna play if you're not here to start..." Scott told him.
"I know. Look, if you see my dad, can you tell him... tell him I'll be there, I'll just be a little bit late, okay? All right, thanks." Stiles said to him before hanging up the phone.
"You're not gonna make it." Derek stated.
"I know." Stiles answered.
"And you didn't tell him about his mom, either." Derek added.
"Not 'til we find out the truth." I told him. I looked at Stiles and said, "Coach's not gonna let you play for a while anymore if you bail."
"I'm already bailing." Stiles huffed, annoyed, as his hold on the steering wheel tightened.
"You can still make it." I pointed out, and he shook his head 'no'.
"No. It's too late. We're already here. Let's just go."
"Derek and I can handle this. Go. Your dad's gonna be disappointed—" I said, but was cut-off by Stiles' frustrated scream.
"I KNOW!"
Everyone in the car was silent as I took a moment to myself, reeling my tears back in. I wasn't going to cry, not now, and not ever, for anyone.
"Let's just go." I said quietly, afraid my voice would betray me.
“By the way? One more thing..." Derek said to Stiles, looking at him.
"Yeah?" Stiles asked and Derek answered by slamming his head against the dashboard of his car. I squealed, covering my mouth with my hand as Stiles groaned in pain.
"Oh, God! What the hell was that—" Stiles was saying, to which Derek cut him off, saying irritably,
"You know that was for. Go." Derek said, pointing at Stiles’ door and when he didn't move, his hand still massaging the forming bump in his hand, Derek said it again a little louder. "Go!"
Stiles got out of his Jeep, helping me out right after. I wasn't sure exactly why Derek did what he did, but I knew a part of it was because of me. And I admit, it did make me feel better as I tried hiding my grin from Stiles. I gave Derek a quick smile before shutting the door closed.
Stiles was already a few feet ahead of me, making me jog to catch up.
"Hey, wait!" I yelled, grabbing his arm to make him look at me. I grabbed each side of his face, pulling him down slightly to get a better view of his head. I felt for his bump with my thumbs and stopped when he winced, pulling away from my touch by grabbing each of my hands in his.
"Ow! Liz, I'm fine." Stiles complained, and I rolled my eyes in answer.
"'Ow, I'm fine' doesn't mean your fine. In fact, it usually means you're the opposite of ‘fine’." I snarked at him but surprisingly, it melted his expression from a frown to an affectionate smile.
"What?" I asked him sharply, getting even more annoyed by his reaction, which only made him smile more.
"Here I was, thinking you hated me. And then you do this." Stiles said softly, surprising me, before I decided to mask it with a blank expression, ripping my arms from his hold.
"I don't... hate you. You just won't talk to me." I told him, my voice low, and his smile vanished into his former expression. Thankfully, I didn't have to stare at it for long as a call from my phone startled the both of us from each other's gaze.
"Hello?" I answered, not bothering to look at the Caller ID as I took a guess as to who was calling me.
"Are you guys just going to stand there or what?" Derek sassed and I rolled my eyes, hanging up on him and pointing my middle finger at Stiles' Jeep, knowing he was there, watching me.
"Come on." I told Stiles, walking towards the entrance of the Hospital. We tried looking for Melissa where we usually see her, but she wasn't there. Nobody was. The hospital almost completely barren, with the occasional nurse and wandering patient, maybe a doctor every now and then. But other than that, it was quiet. Disturbingly quiet.
"Yeah, I said I can't find her." Stiles said to his phone, presumably talking to Derek. Stiles saw me looking at him and put the phone on speaker.
"Look, ask for Jennifer. She's been looking after my uncle." Derek told us and we walked towards Peter's room, knowing where it was, courtesy of Scott.
"Yeah, well, he's not here, either." I said out-loud as I was the first to reach the room to see it empty of any living soul.
"What?" Derek asked through the phone.
"He's not here. He's gone, Derek." Stiles said to him when the realization hit me the same time it did for Derek.
"Oh, my God..." I muttered, fearfully grabbing Stiles' hand and slowly backing away from the door. The visions I saw when my phantom spirit—as Stiles called it— touched the Alpha, came flooding back to me like the wall that was keeping it in— collapsed.
"Guys, get out of there right now! It's him! He's the Alpha! Get out!" Derek yelled just as I looked to my right to see Peter leaning against the wall, staring at me with a smirk on his half-burned face. I squealed in fright, jumping away from him, my back hitting Stiles' chest.
"Hey, there Tinker bell." He greeted, waving his fingers at me before his eyes landed behind me to Stiles, whom had encircled his arms protectively around my body. "And you must be Stiles."
I turned around Stiles' body, with his hand still in mine, to run away from Peter when I was met with the sight of Nurse Jennifer on the other side of the hall.
"What are you doing here? Visiting hours are over." She told us, a bitchy grin on her face, knowing she had us trapped. I always did find her creepy, but whenever I would bring it up to Melissa, Scott, my dad or Stiles? They'd always look at me weirdly. Well, who's weird now! Ha!
"You... and him... You're-you're the one who— Oh, my— and he's— Oh, my God, we're gonna die." Stiles sang fearfully, and I slapped him hard on the shoulder, making damn sure it hurt.
"We are NOT going to die!" I barked at him as I looked back and forth between Peter and Jennifer, not sure which of them were the bigger threat. I knew Peter was the Alpha but Jennifer? I had no idea what the hell she was.
Thankfully, Derek was there to elbow her in the face, enough to make her pass out and fall to the floor. As she lied there, passed out and unmoving, she reminded me of doll a girl might leave on the floor, it's limbs in awkward positions and seemingly unanimated with just one blink away to tell you that they're not. Creepy.
"That's not nice." Peter mockingly scolded him, making Stiles and I turn to look at him instead. "She's, my nurse."
"She's a psychotic bitch helping you kill people." Derek said to Peter, turning his head to face us, then saying "get out of the way."
I listened, quickly flattening myself against the wall and separating myself from Stiles as he buffered, looking between the two.
"Stiles!" I screeched.
"Oh, damn..." He muttered, flattening himself against the floor and crawling to where I was standing. Why do I love this boy again?
"You think I killed Laura on purpose? One of my own family?" Peter said, advancing from his spot towards Derek, and Derek growled, his eyes glowing blue as he ran and attacked Peter. Or at least tried to, anyway. Stiles dragged me down onto the floor with him just before Peter slammed Derek against the wall I was leaning in, just a few seconds before.
Due to Stiles' intense panic molding with mine, my body went into autopilot as it followed Stiles' example of crawling on the floor. He slightly bumped into me when he got too close to Jennifer, and upon a closer look, I could see the blood on her doll-like face pooling out of her nose.
"Eugghh!" I expressed, turning the other way from it and hiding behind the counter of one of the nurses' stations. After taking cover behind it, I sat up from my crawling position, listening in to their fight.
"My mind, my personality, were literally burned out of me. I was being driven by pure instinct." I heard Peter say as his voice got closer and closer to where we were. I looked over the counter just as he stopped by Jennifer's body, dropping Derek whom he'd dragged against the floor by his neck as he walked. He kneeled, taking a set of keys from her pocket as Derek stood up again.
"You want forgiveness?" Derek asked, hitting Peter across the face. Peter retaliated by pulling him closer and slamming his head against his.
"I want understanding." He told him before kicking him way across the hall.
"Do you have any idea what it was like for me during those years?" Peter said, but distracted by a sound, I turned my head around to see Stiles flopping on the floor like a fish, trying to get a better look; then deciding against it when he saw Derek's current state. I shook my head at him, rolling my eyes, and turned my attention back to the two as Peter started talking again.
"Slowly healing, cell by cell. Even more slowly coming back to consciousness. Yes, becoming an Alpha, taking that from Laura, pushed me over a plateau in the healing process. I can't help that."
Derek stood up and tried punching Peter in the face, left and right, but he caught his hand, bending it, breaking it, as he continued to talk.
"I tried to tell you what was happening. I tried to warn you."
Peter threw Derek's body over the counter, shattering the glass. Derek landed on the ground, beat up and bloody.
Anger boiled in my veins upon seeing him like that— seemingly both helpless and weak—done to him by his own flesh and blood; by his uncle; his supposed family.
Peter stared at me, a smirk on his scarred face like he was mocking me; egging me on to do something I knew I wasn't supposed to do. But logic flew out of the window a few months ago. As if driven by instinct, I quickly stood up and grabbed a computer monitor—the first thing I could get my hands on. I ran to him, despite Derek and Stiles telling me 'no', and I smashed the monitor against Peter’s head, knowing he would let me; just to show me how pointless it was.
But it only made me angrier; and that anger? I felt it travel to my hands.
I pushed Peter back, successfully, and I huffed an excited little laugh, cheering internally as I watched him stumble back and fall to the floor. And then I saw my hands.
They glowed with a faint, purple light before quickly disappearing that I had to wonder if what I saw was actually real. Unfortunately, I didn't have time to contemplate on the matter as Peter slowly stood up, making me step back.
I expected him to be pissed, but he only gave me a maniac smile before quickly—too quick for a human— walking over to me. He grabbed me by the nape, his nails—his claws—scratching and slightly digging into my skin as he seemed to think something to himself, staring me in the eye.
"NO!!!" Stiles bellowed, running towards us, but Peter only swatted him back like a bug, his back hitting a wall before sliding onto the floor. I couldn't really see him but I suspected he was still conscious, although dazed, as I heard him mutter to himself,
"No. No, no, no, no..."
"I'm not gonna lie to you, Elizabeth. I really didn't expect you to be this... powerful. But don't worry, " he said, using his other hand to graze my cheek with the claw of his pointer finger, "Not only does this make things better— it will also make things more interesting. For me, you-- all of us, really."
"I could show you just what I mean—right now. Reveal to you the truth; Tell you what you are. I know you've been asking; wondering. Starting to remember things you don't understand. It's so juicy, too. Believe me, I so want to tell you." Peter told me, his claws pressing dangerously hard against the skin of my neck, just enough to hurt but not enough to pierce through skin. “Not yet”. He sighed, before dramatically saying, "Alas... The time is not yet to be. All in good time, though. All in good time."
I expected him to dig his claws against the skin of my face— my neck— scratch and tear it into pieces like tissue paper, but all he did was let me go. Just like that. We both stared at each other, my confused face silently asking his blank look for an explanation I knew he wouldn't give. Instead, I was given a smile, before being brutally backhanded in the face, hitting me so hard I passed out even before I hit the ground.
"So, you're coming to the game tonight, right?" Jackson asked, his voice distant and faraway but somehow, at the same time, close and near. "You have to! We win tonight, we're in the semi-finals. It's not because of Scott, right?"
"I was thinking it might be a little weird..." Allison said, in the same weird sound of voice as Jackson's.
"Jackson! This little text? Not funny." Lydia said, sounding really upset.
Patronizingly, Jackson replied, "no, I wasn't trying to be funny. I would have put a "haha" at the end of it; and see? There's no "haha."
"What the hell is this?" Lydia asked, and again in his patronizing tone, he replied,
"Well, Lydia, in preparation for some big changes, I've decided to drop some of the dead weight in my life... And you're just about the deadest."
"Holy hotness. Oh, if I was in high school again... or maybe just a substitute teacher..." Kate's wondered aloud.
"You are sick."
"What are you looking for?" Kate asked, though this one seemed to be another conversation entirely.
Allision sighed, saying, "I don't know... Something. Anything. Why he would want to kill us."
"Allison said that she's seen you talking to him. Don't you think that seems a little disconcerting, Scott? You talking to an alleged murderer?" Mr. Argent's voice asked Scott.
"Why are you talking to me like I've done something wrong?" Scott asked defensively, to which Mr. Argent replied,
"Have you?"
"What do you want, Allision?" Kate asked.
"I want to feel powerful." Allision answered.
"It's the bite that does it, isn't it?" Jackson asked and hesitantly, Scott answered,
"Yes."
"Well, I'm gonna give you a chance to give me what I want. What's three days, huh? Seventy-two hours? That's all you get, Scott. Seventy-two hours." Jackson declared.
"Chris, remember how we were talking about a second Beta? A younger one?" Kate's whispering voice, said.
"Yes." Mr. Argent replied, equally as quiet.
"Can you get turned by a scratch?"
"If the claws go deep enough, maybe..."
"Wonder how deep those went." Kate asked.
"There's Hunters. Werewolf Hunters. There's a whole family of them." Scott explained.
"Derek, you have to give me a chance to explain." Peter's voice added in. "After all, we're family."
"Do you know what ‘Argent’ means in French?" Jackson asked, and answering his own question, he said, "It means silver"
"The necklace the girl was wearing. That's the symbol on it. I asked her about it— she said it was a family thing. You find the girl wearing that necklace, she's your arsonist." Mr. Harris' said, confusing me as to how he was involved in this ordeal.
"You don't have to be psychotic to be a killer." Kate said, her voice: sharp, before softening back to her usual tone of voice.
"You just need... a reason."
"Murderer." Mr. Stilinski corrected. "Arson happens to property. This girl's a murderer."
I gasped, waking up, only to find myself restricted by a seat belt in Stiles' Jeep.
"Well, look who finally woke up. Just as we'd strapped her in, no less. Talk about perfect timing."
I looked to my right to see Derek, holding my hand and touching my shoulder. Derek looked at me with concern while Peter, standing just behind him, stared at me with a carefree smile on his face.
The cold breeze of the night, as it wafted onto my face and body through the open door, slowly lulled me back to sleep that I had to try my best not to let it.
"Liz... " Stiles whispered, his hand gently holding my other one in his. I turned my head to look at him, to see his face pulled into a stressed frown, and his eyes, red. I pulled my hand back to hold his cheek and felt it dampen with tears. He leaned against my touch, closing his eyes and holding my hand with both of his, as if to keep it there, forever.
"As much as I hate to break this lovely scene, Derek and I have plans with our dear friend, Scott. Which, I'm afraid, means we're gonna have to see the ending of this movie another time. Derek?" Peter said, calling for Derek's attention. Derek looked at me apologetically, pulling his hand back from mine and closing the door to my side of the car.
My hand fell from Stiles' cheek, but he still held it in his when I turned to look at him in question.
"Derek and Peter?" He asked me, but I simply stared at him, waiting for him to explain. He sighed before he did, telling me, "They've... decided to team up."
"What?"
"Yeah. I guess Derek trusts him now. And forgiven him. Even though Peter killed his sister—his niece—which, of course, is just so fucking fucked up." He rambled, letting go of my hand to start the car, saying, "We have to go to the school. We need to get to Scott, right now."
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