Kidnapped Part 7
His eyes were a cold blue like wet winter days filled with clouds and the threat of bone chilling rain. How could he have been fooled? Those eyes never held the warmth of friendship or the growing passion of romance; they had held the glaze of revenge and bloodlust.
The sound of my engine always calmed me, its deep purr soothing and conductive to untangling knotted thoughts about a certain human who had managed to work his way into my life to the point that I was no longer whole without him. My conversation with the sheriff replayed in my head. The advice was sound and I had been given his unspoken permission to court his son. Damn, I would never say that out loud, my pack would never let me live it down.
I needed to talk to Stiles, to somehow explain that he was never the afterthought but the whole reason for the rescue. It was for him and only him that I went to the Argents, blood of my families' murderer, to beg for help. It was for him that I exposed my pack to the sheriff, risking not only my life but the lives of three other teens as well. I just didn't know how to string the sentences together. It seemed that every time I spoke to Stiles these days I caused more pain, more misunderstandings between us. My every move to bring us closer only drove us further apart.
My hand was resting on the stick, ready to shift into reverse when the sheriff pounded on my hood. "Derek, there's been shots fired at Beacon's Glen." I stared at the sheriff in confusion and anger. "Stiles is on a date with Jack at the Glen." He didn't take time to say more just ran to his car and pulled out of the driveway in a blaze of red and blue lights.
The pain registered before the sound even reached his ears, a cold punch to his ribs that spread icy fingers of pain outward along his side. He was surprised that his next huffed breath didn't create of mist cloud in front of his face.
He let his body drop, pushing both hands up with the same motion catching a glimmer of deadly steel as it brushed by his cheek. Twisting under and around, aligning himself on the inside of his grasp. Thrusting his elbow up and back he felt it strike, not the solid crunch of shattered cartilage of a nose but a softer impact of a throat's column.
Even with the sirens blaring, clearing the cars ahead of us and opening lanes of traffic through lights and intersections it was still too slow for my liking. I dialed Stiles and listened as the phone rang until it turned over to voicemail. I couldn't disconnect, I just listened as Stiles' voice made snide comments about his level of importance and possible willingness to call one back. I fought down the thought that it would be the last time I heard his voice. Ignored the terror that this time I would be too late to save him, that this time it would be his lifeless body I carried out instead of his broken one.
My phone buzzed beside me and I answered it before the first ring had a chance to finish.
"He's not answering his phone." The sheriff's voice as calm but even through the phone and over the siren's wail I could hear the pounding of his heart. It was the crescendo of panic, the thunder of desperation and my heart echoed along.
"He will be alright. He has to be alright."
Boots would have been better but even in his worn Nike's his heel made a solid impact on the instep of the other foot. The muzzle of the gun was warm in his hand. The grip was slippery with sweat making it easier to wrench, the small bones of the trigger finger snapping and popping as they broke under the strain.
He fumbled with the falling metal with both hands pulling it to his chest to keep it from hitting the ground or being reclaimed. His finger found the trigger on its own accord, sliding in as if coming home.
The sheriff was the first responder to the scene. Groups of panicked people milled about like frightened cattle. I could hear him questioning, trying to find the direction of the shot, locate some sign of Stiles. But I didn't rely on weak human senses. Over the smell of sunscreen and picnic lunches I could smell the cloying scent of blood, thin, faint and Stiles'.
"Sheriff," I barked as I took off down the path dropping down on all fours to increase my speed not caring if I gave away my precious secret focused only on getting to Stiles.
The smell of blood strengthened. I could pick up the individual scents of Stiles, his fear tainted sweat, the sweeter taste of flesh wound blood and not the darker tang of organ blood leaking into the ground. My world became the smell of Stiles' blood, the sound of my heart, and the feel of the dirt beneath me as I poured everything I had into getting to his side.
His eyes were a cold blue like wet winter days filled with clouds and the threat of bone chilling rain. He laid gasping fish like on the forest floor. The blood spread, Rorschach like in their design across his chest and shoulder.
There was a body on the ground. A body.
"Stiles," the word was a harsh prayer to the universe that I wasn't too late. My chest burned with fear almost blocking out the duel beats of frantic hearts.
It wasn't a body. It was Jack, still alive but bleeding into the forest floor, blood seeping into the earth below him, staining it darker with its red hues.
Stiles was leaning against a tree, gun pointed at Jack's body in a two handed grip, his eyes empty and dark.
"Stiles." I kept my movements slow so not to spook him as I approached.
"He was using me to get to you. Why would he think that I would be a good weapon against you? Someone from the pack would have been a better choice, better than me, worth more to you than me."
"Let me have the gun Stiles." Brown eyes looked at me, full of sadness and pain as he offered the gun with trembling hands.
"Why would he think it was me?"
My lips were forming 'because it's always been you' as the sheriff came sprinting into view.
"Stiles, oh God, Stiles." I held back the growl as the sheriff took his son into his arms and hugged him tight. I listened as he sobbed out Jack's plan to kill him and make it look like suicide. Fury painted my vision red and my claws were at the bastard's throat without a conscience thought, held off by millimeters by the sheriff's unyielding grip on my arm.
"Don't do it son, don't do it." I let the rage recede to ebb like the tide back into the darkest reaches of my soul.
I pulled my outer shirt off and pressed it to Stiles' bloody side while his dad called in a report. His trembling body leaned into me as if seeking warmth and I gladly pulled him deeper into my embrace.
All the way back to the parking lot, where the police cars gathered casting red and blue shadows on the faces of the gawkers, Stiles used me for support. We sat side by side on a bench while the paramedic looked at the shallow gunshot wound on his side.
Finishing with his work the sheriff took Stiles from my protection, leading him to the ambulance and climbing in behind him. I could hear his soft protest against returning to the hospital and plea for someone to get his jeep to safety before the vehicle pulled away, leaving me behind.
I stared at his blood coating the palm of my hand until dusk fell.
