Chapter Nineteen: Jesus Fucking Christ
The halls of the Sheriff's station were like a ghost town. The receptionist at the front desk was too busy checking her Facebook on company time to notice Alex sneaking in. Besides her, the place was basically deserted. It was the night shift and with Stiles' help she had memorized the Sheriff's and the deputies rounds. She'd already done that with her father a few times before her family had even moved to Beacon Hills, but the refresher had been the responsible move. She had also studied the blueprints with her father multiple times before her parents had even decided which house they were moving into.
Alex found herself feeling surprisingly grateful for the knowledge.
Between her and Stiles, she would find the holding cells in record time.
However, so would whoever her mother and father had decided to send.
"You know this place just as well as I do." Stiles had snuck up on her and now her knife was poised at his jugular. Hadn't she told him to wait in the fucking car? He'd effectively scared the shit out of her and judging by the way he was looking at her now above the blade of her knife that posed perfectly below his jugular, she'd scared him, too. "I should have seen that coming."
"Didn't I tell you to wait in the car?" She whispered, not removing her knife quite yet. After the scene in the car, she wanted him to sweat a little. Remember who was in charge here.
"I don't remember agreeing."
"Listen smart-ass," The words came out harsh, "This is Lahey's first full moon, it's not going to be pretty and a baseball bat isn't going help you stay alive." She removed her knife from his throat and motioned it towards the hall, signalling to keep moving. He was here now and they had no time to waste.
"I didn't bring it to help me stay alive." They creeped through an open door where the holding cells were located and took a good look around. "I wasn't about to let you come in here alone - wait, where the hell is he?" Stiles had cut himself off when they peered around the room, noting with displeasure that all three holding cells were vacant. Upon further inspection, the bars on the cell on the far left had been bent and broken at odd angles. It would have taken tremendous force to pry those solid bars out of place, let alone break them.
"That's not good." Stiles commented.
A gun cocked from behind them and Alex whipped around on quick feet to find a MP5SD pointed right between her eyes.
Fuck.
"Traitor." Hissed Nathan, a man she recognized from multiple recon missions and training sessions. He was their sharp shooter. He'd always been such a pleasant man, one who always smiled at her when her father had invited him to dinner, and one who'd always offered her tricks and tips when she'd needed them. More importantly, he was a man who had taken orders from her and respected her leadership position within the ranks of Hunters and now he was holding a gun to her temple.
He wasn't so friendly right now.
Alex saw Stiles move out of the corner of her eye, he reared back, preparing to swing his bat on the unsuspecting man but Nathan was suddenly lifted high into the air and tossed viciously into the wall behind them. His lithe body hit the plaster, cracking it and leaving a nasty hole the taxpayers would surely be paying for.
Isaac, crouched low on the ground and growled at them. His bright yellow eyes flicked between the pair as if he were trying to decide which was the bigger threat and therefore, who to take down first. Nathan was down for the count, slumped lifelessly against the holding cell wall. Isaac's choice was made when he leapt into the air with a howl and lunged directly at Alex.
She'd been prepared for his lunge and dodged the first attack with relative ease. It was his first full moon and although he was at his strongest and most volatile he was also at his most inexperienced. He had no idea what was happening to him and was acting on instinct. An instinct that Alex had spent a lifetime studying and hunting.
With speedy reflexes she reached into her holsters and whipped dagger after dagger at the beast. One found his shoulder, but it didn't deter him for long. Isaac lunged at her again, angry, and he managed to catch her by the throat. His claws broke the skin and Alex cried out in frustration, pain and surprise. His long claws were embedded in her throat and with one flick of Isaac's wrist he could have slit her throat clean open.
That was going to scar.
A metallic thump reverberated throughout the room and it assaulted her ears as Isaac lost his hold on her and she touched her tender throat in a feeble attempt to staunch the bleeding. Why was she always bleeding? She stumbled back, out of Isaac's reach and saw Stiles standing behind him looking triumphant with his bat. She flashed him a thousand watt smile in thanks which may, in retrospect have looked a little terrifying with all the blood running down her chest.
Isaac was getting angrier by the second. After Stiles had hit him with the bat he'd been momentarily disoriented but the laser-like focus spurned on by blood lust was back full force. With what looked like a careless swish of his wrist Stiles was thrown mercilessly into the holding cell bars, headfirst. Alex choked in a horrified breath as she scrambled desperately to get to him.
Isaac was faster.
He blocked her way, corded muscles taut, ready to lunge. He swiped at her with his claws and she ducked with minimal time to spare. She hit the ground with a thud and quickly maneuvered herself onto her hands and executed a sweeping kick that took out Isaac's legs.
The amount of force needed to take him out left her balance uneven and before she could reach to pull out another knife Isaac was on top of her. He'd pinned her to the floor and she felt her wrist and legs being crushed beneath the blunt floor and his unrelenting grasp on her limbs. She struggled in vain, trying to buy herself time to think of a way out of this unbelievably shitty predicament.
Stiles, who'd been knocked unconscious momentarily finally stopped seeing double after he'd gotten to his hand and knees. The sight of Isaac growling and snapping his elongated teeth at Alex who was trapped helpless beneath him sent him into a panic and he began crawling towards her with absolutely no plan as to what to do when he reached her. He heaved out a ragged breath as he got with a foot of them and Isaac rounded on him with blazing yellow eyes. With one hand he reached out and grabbed Stiles by the neck closing his windpipe.
Stiles' eyes widened as his body struggled for a breath and Alex watched on in horror, unable to move from her position on the floor. She reached out with a blood covered hand for Stiles' and interlocked their fingers. He squeezed back.
I'm here.
Dying was so not on her list of things to do today. But she supposed, if she had to go now, at least someone she loved was clutching onto her hand as hard as she was clutching to his.
When the door swung open, it busted right off of it's hinges. The heavy door clipped Isaac in the shoulder and miraculously missed both Alex and Stiles. Derek was revealed in the doorway, splintered wood raining down on him as he muscles budged with anger and adrenaline and his eyes shone a bright red in the small room.
Isaac stiffened above her, sensing a new and greater threat. He released his death grip on Stiles and scrambled to get off of Alex. Isaac crouched on all fours, growling at Derek and snapping his jaw manically at Derek who was staring him down.
Stiles clutched Alex hand even harder and pulled her as far away from Isaac and Derek as possible, pulling both of them into an open holding cell to ensure her safety. He looked over her with unwavering concern, pressing his hand against her neck to stop the bleeding from her wounds. She gazed up at him with wonder. He was still blue in the face from lack of oxygen and he was still fussing over her like he hadn't almost just died, same as her.
There was an unspoken understanding that neither of them were letting the others hand go anytime soon.
Derek broke their moment by letting out a guttural Alpha howl that shook the building and sent Isaac falling to the floor on his knees. His yellow eyes remained downcast, unable to look his Alpha in the eye or show disrespect by lifting his head.
The threat had been nullified.
There was a collective sigh of relief.
"Impeccable timing." Stiles quipped, his voice raw and scratchy from having his windpipe nearly crushed by Isaac. "You couldn't have shown up five minutes ago?"
Derek rounded on him with a murderous look, about to yell at Stiles about where he could go and how to get there but the words caught in his throat when he caught sight of Alex, who was still clutching desperately to Stiles hand with a gushing wound from her neck and was sporting an impressively disgusting nosebleed.
"Alex?" Derek questioned softly as her eyes began to unfocused. He made a move to get wrench open the holding cell door and get to her but he knew that he couldn't leave Isaac unsupervised for even a second.
Stiles turned his confused gaze to Alex.
"Woah." He said gently, cupping her face tenderly in his hands. Alex looked at him curiously, the edges of him were getting blurry and Alex tried her hardest to focus her eyes and remain conscious. The sleepy wonder he'd only seen in her eyes a handful of times made his breath catch and he brushed a soft cautious thumb over her top lip. "You're bleeding."
She choked out a gurgled laugh, "Yeah."
"From your nose." He clarified with a raw smirk.
Alex wiped her nose with the back of her hand and surveyed the damage. Thick red blood coated the back of her hand. She looked up to Stiles and Derek with confusion and Derek stared back with a strange fascination that made her eyebrows pull together. When Isaac began to whimper pathetically on the floor, Derek's attention shifted from her to him.
"You guys should go find Scott and Allison." Derek announced, keeping his watchful eye on his submissive. "Scott is having trouble with the full moon tonight. I'll handle the new pup."
Stiles skirted out of the holding cell and around the very edges of the room, avoiding Derek, Isaac and the unconscious hunter who'd somehow been knocked in the head so hard that the fight to the death that had occurred right on top of him hadn't woken him up. Stiles wanted to keep as much distance between as possible between Isaac and Alex . . and himself.
Alex disentangled herself from Stiles grip, one hand pressed to her neck, and stepped right over the Beta, knowing that with Derek here the Beta was now in full control. Plus, she wanted to prove to herself that she was still a badass despite being completely owned by a brand new werewolf. She was obviously out of practice because there was no way that would have ever happened to her on a normal day.
Unfortunately, she hadn't had a normal day since she'd moved to this forsaken town.
"They're at Isaac's house." Derek explained further, red eyes still trained on the submissive Beta that knelt before him.
"Why?" Stiles asked, watching Alex's approach carefully. He only started breathing again when she was back at his side and they were both at the threshold of the door.
"Mr. Lahey had effective means of confining someone." Derek said, vague as always and Alex rolled her eyes.
.
"What an absolute piece of shit." Alex declared, examining the freezer with a throughly disgusted look on her face. "This is the kind of monster we should be hunting."
Stiles looked just as appalled, staring open mouthed at the bloody scratch marked and knowing instantly that they hadn't been from Scott when he'd been forced in the freezer during the peak of the full moon.
"It's motive." Stiles declared. He was saying what everyone was thinking but didn't want to say out loud.
In Alex's opinion if Isaac had killed his father, it was completely justified. She'd kill anyone who would care treat her that way, too. She fingered the still raw cuts on her neck. The bleeding had stopped because they were relatively shallow scratches, but they still hurt
"It also explains why Derek offered him the bite." Alex commented, swallowing the bile that had risen into her throat as she imagined what Coach Lahey had done to his own son. "Derek gave him a way to fight back."
"That doesn't mean that it's right." Scott announced, his eyes hard as he looked upon her. "Someone was murdered."
"You can't seriously be playing that 'righteous do gooder card' right now, Scott." Alex exclaimed with a bite to her tone. "His dad locked him in a fucking freezer." She crossed her arms over her chest, defiant. "The prick deserved exactly what he got."
"Amen!" Stiles declared, his eyes were still glued to the freezer, unable to look away. "He didn't have claws then - those were made with human nails."
"Scott . . ." Allison trailed off, speaking for the first time since Alex and Stiles had shown up. "Tell them."
Alex prepared herself for whatever that meant and fought the overwhelming urge to scream in frustration. There was no way this shit could get any worse. There was no way that life in Beacon Hills was this fucked up.
"We don't think it was Isaac." Scott admitted.
"Oh!" Alex threw her arms in the air with wild abandon. "So you just enjoy fucking with me?"
Stiles nudged her, a gentle nudge in the side. Alex hardly cared. Scott had just lectured her on the fact that someone had been murdered and just because the dead person had been a dick didn't mean that he deserved to die by the hands of the son he'd abused. Turns out he'd known the whole time that it probably wasn't Isaac at all. He'd just taken the opportunity to lecture her about morals.
Dick.
"Why not?" Stiles questioned.
"Allison was attacked." Scott offered up that information like he was talking about the traffic or the weather but he'd also moved unconsciously closer to her while he spoke, like he was trying to protect her from the threat that was obviously long gone.
"The fuck?" Alex spoke, her voice stern and clear. She took immediate stock of her sister; no bumps or bruises, no blood. Alex wondered idly if Allison had taken stock of her - bloodied and beaten, and if Allison's heart had stopped that same as Alex's had in this moment.
Scott began to launch into the tale of of how he'd busted out of the locked freezer after hearing Allison's scream and her obvious struggle with whatever had happened upon them in Lahey's basement. He described that way the creature suspended itself from the rafters in the ceiling, flicking a tail that was longer than the creature itself.
"A giant lizard man?" Alex huffed with irritation and slight amazement. "That's just great - really, truly awesome." She deadpanned, wanting desperately to be anyone else in the world in that moment. "I'm going home."
She walked slowly, but with purpose up the creaky basement stairs and right out of the house.
"I'll drive her." Stiles announced, running up the stairs, taking two of them at a time to catch up with her.
Alex was in a daze.
How was it that any of Scott's friends never seemed to catch a break. More importantly, how was it that she and her sister had been looped into the category of 'Scott's friends' and were also now without any breaks in the foreseeable future? This was insane. Lizard people? She had enough to worry about with her nightmares and unconscious self harm.
"We need to talk about this - all of us." Stiles told her, falling into step with her as she walked aimlessly into the night air. He guided her to the Jeep with a strong hand and she wouldn't have ever told him, but she was grateful for it. Because she had no idea what she was doing or where she was going.
"Can we talk tomorrow?" She asked weakly. There was nothing left in her to assume her haughty facade. She was tired and she didn't care that Stiles was seeing her in this fragile state.
"Yeah." Stiles nodded, helping her into his passenger seat and securing her seatbelt in place. "We can talk tomorrow. I'll drive you home."
She was already safely secured in the passenger seat when she said, "I'm afraid I won't be very pleasant company tonight, Stilinski."
He ran around the front of the car frantically, like she might jump out if he wasn't fast enough and when he wrenched one the door and threw himself into the driver's seat her beamed at her with that smile he liked to wear when he was anxious and trying to hide it. "Yeah," He laughed a little, "Because you're an absolute peach every other day of the week."
Alex could hardly remember the last time she'd truly smiled, and when one spread across her face she felt like she was flying.
"Holy shit." Stiles was pleasantly surprised as he pulled out of the Lahey driveway. "A smile. I definitely thought I was going to get throttled for that one."
"I'm still thinking about it." She joked. "I think Isaac may have done taken care of that enough for one day."
They remained silent after that, but Alex knew Stiles well enough to know that it wouldn't last. Even though they'd been estranged for the entire summer his nervous energy was palpable. The streets passed by slowly and Alex noted that he was going way below the speed limit, trying to buy himself some time to work up the nerve to talk to her and nearly smiled at the thought.
How very 'Stiles' of him.
"Are you going to tell me about that nosebleed you got earlier?" He asked and she was caught off guard. After everything that had happened tonight, that was his main concern?
"We were in a fight with a werewolf, Stilinski." She said offhandedly. "We're lucky that's all that happened."
"Isaac didn't get your face. Plus, I was the one that got thrown into those fucking bars - no nosebleed for me."
Alex remained silent, watching the scenery go by. Her earlier assumption that he was driving slow to spend more time with her was confirmed when she realized that he was taking the long way back to the loft.
"Sounds like you have theory." She said eventually. "Hit me."
"I think it had something to do with Derek and his weird 'Alpha roar' thing." He explained, excitedly. "I still don't really understand what that is, or how it works - but I think it affected you tonight the same way it affected Isaac."
"I'm not a werewolf." She said, pointing out the obvious.
"Maybe not." He agreed with a nod. "But, I saw your scars. You have new ones on your arms. You've got fresh ones on your legs, too." Stiles eyed Alex through her peripherals and she ran an hand over her leggings. The leggings that had ridden up her legs in the fights and had been torn a few times near her thighs. Bright red, angry and recent scars littered her flesh. "When did it start happening again?"
"When did what start happening again?" She instantly regretted playing dumb. Especially with Stiles - he would see right through her. Just like he always did.
"The hallucinations. The walking nightmares. The blood." He said, calling her bluff.
"It never stopped." She breathed.
The car swerved a little, a physical representation of Stiles shock at hearing her omission.
What did he expect? Did he think that just because he'd decided to stop being friends with her that her problems still weren't as real as they'd ever been? Did he forget that she'd suffered at the hands of Peter and still had no idea why sometimes she slipped into fugue states that made absolutely no sense to her?
"Why didn't you tell me?" He asked quietly, his hands white knuckling the steering wheel.
"Stiles, the last time I saw you, you basically told me to go fuck myself as far away from you as possible." She hoped that even though his eyes were trained on the road that he could feel the force of her glare on the side of his face.
"I did not."
"Fuck that." She spat. "You gave up any right you may have had to know about my supernatural hallucinations when you very humanly fucked right off!"
"I was jealous!" He yelled, effectively shocking Alex into a stunned silence. "Okay?" He slammed his hands once against the steering wheel and let out a visceral shaky breath. "I saw you and Derek. I just - I don't know, okay? It's all my fault. I totally fucked everything up because I fell in love with you. I'm sorry. I shouldn't have done that. You all but told me not to. But you need to get over it, I'm fucking in love with you and there is absolutely nothing you can do about it, so get over it and just tell me what's been happening to you."
His voice held no manic or excitement, like one would expect while hearing listening to Stiles ramble, but his tone was collected, filled with his truths and facts. The cool and collected look in his eyes made her do a double take. This demeanour was so unlike Stiles, especially when admitting an embarrassing truth. He didn't look embarrassed. He looked determined.
Alex realized that they had pulled to a stop at Derek's loft and she found herself fidgeting awkwardly like he might have if the roles weren't so wildly fucking reversed right now. She turned to look at him and found that he was staring right back at her. He was breathing heavily with the length of his rant and it's intensity. Alex was staring because she was shocked that he'd admitted he was in love her as a way to get her to start opening up about her personal struggles with whatever weird supernatural anomaly was happening to her.
Alex did another double take. He wasn't expecting her admit her undying love for him in reciprocation, he genuinely just wanted her to open up.
"I have all night." He pressed, making sure that she knew that he was comfortable with her silence but was not going to take it as an answer.
"Well, I don't." Alex declared with a mumble. "Derek's probably waiting for me." She gestured to loft, where Derek was probably not waiting for her. He probably wasn't even home but they'd all had a rough night and Alex didn't feel like hashing out her mental instability with Stiles.
Or potentially getting into another fight with him.
"Okay," Stiles shrugged, unbuckling his seatbelt, "I'll walk you up."
"Stiles." It was a warning.
"Alex." It was a joke.
The stare off they entered into was won by Stiles when Alex shouted, "Jesus fucking Christ. Fine!" She swung the door of the Jeep open with an exasperated sigh and Stiles followed her out of the car with a pleased little smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.
