Chapter 21

"It's not going to work." Allie argued leaning against one of the walls in the living room. She stared at the white board with red and black words written all over it.

"You just got to have a little faith, Alls." Jeremy said smiling slightly as he sat on the couch looking up at his father and sister.

"And pixie dust, I assume." Allie snapped. "This isn't going to work. No one is this stupid. Sorry. We need to go back to the drawing board."

"You got any other plans?" Jaden asked holding up one of the white board markers. "I think we are all up for new ideas."

"Yeah, let's quit." Allie offered. "They know about us. The Hales knows our plan and their pack is a lot stronger than the three of us. Even though you bit a couple of teenagers they aren't going to be on our side any time soon. Let's leave town and never come back."

"What about revenge?" Jaden asked. "Are we really just going to let the families that murder my other daughter, your sister, walk away free and no harm done to them?"

"We've already done a lot of harm." Allie said. "Let's just leave before it ends in a bloody battle. One of us is going to die. I've already lost mom and Lilo I can't lose anymore."

Jaden walked over to his daughter and placed his hands on Allie's shoulder looking into her eyes. "And you won't if we wipe out all the people who want to harm us."

"We aren't really doing anything wrong." Jeremy spoke up making eyes turned to him. "An eye for an eye right? Make them suffer like we did for the couple of years. And hey, the plan isn't that bad. I think we can make this work."

Jaden and Allie walked behind the couch looking at the white board with Jeremy.

"Maybe," Allie agreed nodding her head, "this could work. Maybe."

"Okay then, let's get to work." Jaden announced. "Someone find me Ivy and Stiles."

"Let's go back to the killing plan." Peter offered staring at his older sister in her office. "We kill the Herkable's bam, bam, bam and everything is better. What's the problem with this plan?"

"We don't kill people, Peter," Talia replied softly looking at the files all over her desk and then back at up her brother, "just because we are monsters does not mean we have to act like ones."

"But there isn't anything better to do." Lora spoke up. "All they keep doing is killing helpless humans and kidnapping humans while we keep sitting here. Killing them seems like the only good plan."

"We are not monsters." Talia argued looking up at her daughter.

Peter raised his hand up as his claw popped up. "I beg a difference."

"We aren't killing people." Talia snapped. "We just have to figure out how the Herkable are connected to the Simmons."

"That's going to take time, Mom; we need to get out there." Lora said. "Sitting in here looking at files isn't going to help."

"Do you have another plan?" Talia wondered crossing her arms. "I'm all ears. Do you have a better plan?"

Peter and Lora looked at each other and then back at Talia. "No."

"Grab a folder and get to work."

Stiles sat at his dinner table eating a bowl of cereal quietly as he father sat next to him with a cup of coffee and a newspaper. The thing about this that really weirded Stiles out wasn't the fact that his father was eating dinner with him but the fact his father was reading a newspaper. Like really, everything is online for a reason.

Stiles looked up from his phone and stared at his dad. Stiles took his index finger and poked the side of John's face. John lowered the newspaper and looked at his son.

"Yes?"

"Why aren't you at work?" Stiles wondered removing his finger from the side of his father's face.

"I can't just have nice quiet breakfast with my son?" John replied answering Stiles' question with another question.

"No."

John rolled his eyes. "It's just—we never spend any time together anymore. I wanted to change that."

Stiles looked at his father pity in his eyes. This universe Stiles must never talk to his dad. Now thinking about it Stiles never talk to his dad in his universe either.

"I won't come home late today and we can hang out before I go to bed." Stiles offered.

John smiled softly. "I would like that. How's school?"

"Good." Stiles shrugged. It was really good sense he already learned all of the stuff he needed to know so he was passing all of his classes with ease.

The door bell let out loud ring as Stiles and John both shared a lot. John got up and walked over to the door.

"Stiles, it's for you." John called out.

For me, Stiles thought getting out of his seat and walking towards the front door. Scott going on a date with Allison today, Isaac's working. Who could it be?

Derek and Ivy stood in the door both of them with smiles on their faces. John walked out the door going to work before looking back at Stiles and smiling.

"What's up?" Stiles asked watching his dad pull out of the driveway.

"Ivy wanted to go to the park today and I didn't feel like sitting around the house today." Derek explained as he ran his fingers threw his hair. "Anyway Ivy wanted to ask you something."

Stiles looked down at the younger girl.

"You wanna go to the park with us, Batman?" Ivy wondered smiling big.

Stiles and Derek sat on a bench watching Ivy play on the playground. She slides down the slide a big grin on her face as she ran back up on the playground to play again. The sun was beating hard on the two clouds barely covering it. Stiles would glance over at Derek then back at Ivy ever so often. It was strangely quiet with the two of them. With everything that had happened between them lately, kidnapping really brings a friendship closer together.

"Do you come here often?" Stiles wondered trying to make conversation as he looked over at Derek. "To the park I mean with Ivy."

Derek nodded his head. "Me and my siblings trade off. Being stuck up in that house gets boring really fast."

"Oh." Stiles didn't know what to say. Derek really wasn't giving him anything to lead conversations off with.

Derek glanced at his niece one last time as he turned to look at Stiles a curious look on his face; his beautiful, beautiful face.

"I have a question that I've been wondering for a while, I well I don't mean to be rude, but I really want to know." Derek explained. "What did Jeremy do to when he kidnapped you?"

"So I has hung on this like cage," Stiles explained as he placed his wrist in the air beside his face, "like this and on the table was full of weapons like knives, bats, spoons, forks, guns and crossbows. And then he talked to me and started to beat me with the weapons."

Derek's jaw tightened as his eyes narrowed.

"It's okay," Stiles said placing a hand on Derek's shoulder, "I've been through much worst. Once I was beaten up by an old guy."

"Do you miss it?" Derek asked Stiles' hand still on his shoulder. "Your universe, do you miss it?"

"All the time." Stiles moved his hand from Derek's shoulder back to his own leg. "It's funny because I look around and I see all of these people that I would normally with all these memories and no one remembers them. No one but me, it's just really weird."

The two sat in silent both of them not knowing what to say to each other. Both of them stared at Ivy who was playing with another little boy in the sand box.

"You know what," Derek started as he chuckled lightly looking over at Stiles, "when I first saw you I thought you were insane."

"I get that a lot." Stiles replied smiling slightly.

"But now you're not so insane. You're something else." Derek said.

The two had gotten closer to each other as Stiles wanted to hear more of what Derek was saying. Stiles stared up into Derek's big green eyes.

"Yeah…." Stiles trailed off. "What am I?"

"Something." Derek placed a hand on Stiles hand that was on his own leg. Their faces inches apart.

"DEREK! BATMAN!" Both Stiles and Derek turned their heads as Ivy stood up pointing to something. "ICE CREAM CAN WE GET ICE CREAM!"

Derek let out a groan moving his hand away from Stiles to get his wallet. Stiles got placing a hand on Derek's shoulder.

"I got it." Stiles said walking over to Ivy with his hand out. Ivy skipped over to Stiles grabbing his hand. The two walked over towards the ice cream truck Ivy smiling big. The two stood in line as Ivy looked up at Stiles.

"You like my cousin Derek, don't you?" Ivy guessed her green eyes looking up at Stiles.

"Yeah." Stiles replied shrugging. There was no use of hiding it anymore. Everyone knew hell everyone knew before Stiles even knew.

"I knew it." Ivy grinned big. "He likes you two. I asked him in the car ride over. He said yeah too. You two should get married and I can be the pretty flower girl!"

Stiles chuckled. "I don't think that's going to happen." Since the moment the Herkable are done killing people I'm going back home Stiles thought sadly.

"Why not?" Ivy wondered.

"I—uh—" Stiles stammered trying to think if he should tell the truth or lie to the little girl.

"What kind of ice cream do you want?" The ice cream man announced as the two were next in line.

"Can I have a chocolate ice cream cone?" Ivy asked looking at Stiles.

Stiles nodded. "Do you think Derek would want any?"

"No."

"Okay, one chocolate ice cream cone and a cookies 'n cream cone." Stiles said sliding over ten bucks to the ice cream man.

"Why can't you and Derek get married?" Ivy asked again. Stiles didn't say anything.

Stiles mumbled thanks to the ice cream man as he gave Ivy her chocolate ice cream and started to eat his own. The two slowly started to walk back to the playground.

"Batman." Stiles looked down at Ivy. "Why can't you and Derek get married?"

Stiles got on his knee so he and Ivy could be at eye level. "I'm going to tell you something, you are not allowed to tell anyone, okay?" Ivy nodded her head big. "After we solve the Herkable case I'm leaving town. I'm going back home and probably never coming back."

Ivy's smile shrunk as she looked up at Stiles. "You can't leave. No! Please don't Stiles."

"It's okay." Stiles said. "I'm not leaving for a while but I'm not going to stay forever."

Ivy's bottom lip started to pout.

"Please don't say anything to anyone. Not ever your dads, okay?"

Ivy nodded her head as Stiles stood up. Stiles didn't move though. He stared past Ivy towards the ice cream truck when he saw Jeremy walk up to the park with a black thing in his pocket. A gun.

"Ivy, listen to me this is very important." Stiles said glancing down at the younger girl. "When I say go I want you to run to Derek as fast as you can in zig zag you got it. Whatever you do don't run in a straight line and don't look back, you got it?"

"Yeah." Ivy agreed as she stared at Stiles. "Why?"

"There's a bad man that keep looking at us and I'm afraid something bad is going to happen." Stiles explained. "Don't look back. Got it? Don't look back and don't run in a straight line."

The ice cream cone in Stiles' had started to melt but it didn't matter.

Jeremy got closer to them and pulled out the gun.

"Run." Stiles whispered pushing Ivy behind him.

Everything happened fast. Stiles started to run backwards keeping his eyes on Jeremy praying that Ivy would get to Derek safely. Jeremy pulled back on the trigger aiming at Stiles. BANG! A bullet went through Stiles' left shoulder. Stiles let out a loud groan in his pain as his right hand went straight to his shoulder. Stiles turned around as fast as he could run in zig zag. BANG! Another bullet went straight in the lower part of Stiles' leg. Stiles fell face first into the sand box. He turned around fast to see Jeremy getting closer to him. Stiles then turned back to see Ivy and Derek running away.

There was a loud shriek and yell of, "STILES!" It didn't matter anymore. Nothing really matter Stiles thought as everything got dark. Maybe I'll be able to go back home….