Chapter 26 - Unforgivable

"Tuesday, January 20 2001 (Larissa's birthday, yay!)

Hematite

Other names: Stone for the Mind, Blood Stone (Europe), Blood Ore

Keywords: Stability, grounding, protection

Gray-blakc, silvery, blood = rust. Found worldwide.

Connect to Earth plane, calm mind, organize thinking, decrease negativity. Balance body/spirit/mind. Keeps out excess energy. "

This was the entry I had on hematite in my journal from the Academy, on the mineral my pendant was made out of, on the mineral I now clutched in my fist, desperate to draw power from. It didn't work.

Stiles was missing.

Gerard was missing.

Connect the dots, anyone?

Gerard, the sword-wielding psychopath that just tried to kill Isaac, had Stiles.

The Sheriff, torn between family- and work-responsibility, handled the situation the best he could – but I would be worried too if my son went missing right after his teammate was found torn apart on the lacrosse field. He took Lydia with him to the hospital, looking hopelessly to us for any clues on Stiles' whereabouts. Scott told some halfhearted lie of nerves and attention; I just turned away, hugging myself and stroking the pendant.

"You cold?"

Isaac's hand on my shoulder, a million degrees warmer than me, sending bolts of heat through my skin. I realized my body shook. I wasn't cold, not really - I burned on the inside. I was furious.

"No," I managed to say, biting the inside of my lip. We were waiting for the rest of the team to get the hell out of here, so Isaac and Scott could start tracking Stiles by the scent of his clothes. Normally I would've found that slightly more amusing.

"You know we'll find him," Isaac said. He kept clenching and unclenching his jaw for some reason. My eyes must have been dark, because he ducked his head so he could look at his sneakers instead. He cleared his throat. "I know he – I know he means a lot to you."

"Yeah, and we're wasting time by just standing around here and doing nothing!" I spat, but tried to keep it to a whisper. "This is useless, I'm gonna go-"

"No!" Isaac grabbed hold of my arm, stopping me in my tracks. I glared at his hand until he took it away gently. "No, just…Cassie, they already got to Stiles, I don't – I don't want them to get to you too."

He pulled his arm back, crossed it with the other over his chest. "Besides, what are you gonna do that the Sheriff hasn't already tried?"

Find him.

I hesitated, just a second, but it was enough for Coach Finstock to finally leave his solemn conversation with Scott and we were alone in the locker room.

"Is that everyone?" Scott asked and Isaac did a quick survey of the room, probably using other senses than sight.

"Yes!" I snapped and threw my arms out. "Now can you please hurry?"

Scott didn't bother answering, but used a clawed hand to tear open Stiles' locker with horrifying protests from the metal. Isaac raised an eyebrow, but I guessed even if Scott did know Stiles' code, he probably had some anger to let out himself. Good.

Isaac looked from his piece of Stiles' clothing to Scott's. "Hey, how come you get his shirt and I get a shoe?"

"Seriously? Does it matter?"

Isaac shrugged. "No, it's just… a shoe, it's kind of-" He stopped.

I turned to see what could possibly be so captivating during this kind of crucial time and lo and behold: Derek. "Oh, good, you can play search dog too."

He ignored me, standing there all Alpha-like with rippling chest muscles and an embarrassingly tight t-shirt. Must've shrunk in wash or something. "We need to talk."

"Can it wait? We're kind of in the mid-"

"All of us," Derek said, still overlooking me in favor of Scott.

Scott's eyes widened. "Holy shit!"

The temperature in the room seemed to drop by ten degrees, so I huddled my – Stiles' – shirt around me tighter.

"What the hell is this?" Scott sounded like he'd seen a ghost. I mean, what? It's just Derek for crying out loud. Yeah, so he's kind of hot, but it's nothing we haven't seen before. And it's really not important right now.

Derek gave a serious nod. "You know, I thought the same thing when I saw you talking to Gerard at the sheriff's station."

Whoa, Scott did what?

"Okay, hold on!" Scott said quickly. "He…he threatened to kill my mom. And I had to get close to him. What was I supposed to do?"

There was a lull in the conversation as Derek twisted his head to the left. Without warning, both he and Scott shouted: "Shut up!"

My eyebrows rose. Okay, I was clearly missing something here.

"Who are they talking to?" I whispered to Isaac, whose gaze seemed fixed at something over Derek's shoulder. Suppose it must be awkward seeing his Alpha again when he actually planned to run away. Isaac kept quiet, but shuffled further to his right and dragged me with him. Not that this new position was any more enlightening, but okay…

"Who is he?" Isaac asked Scott instead, still holding on to me.

I raised my eyebrows further, if possible. "Who's who? Derek? Guys, what the hell are you looking at?"

Scott and Isaac both turned to me, before rotating back to the empty spot they kept staring at. Aaand back to me again.

"Him?" Isaac asked, a touch of panicked sarcasm in his tone.

"Him who? What are you guys talking about?"

Scott's face twisted in a myriad of emotions. I gave him my best 'What?'-shake of my head. He blinked and gestured silently to Derek. "You don't see him?"

"I see him as in Derek," I said cautiously and watched Scott's face blank.

"This is not exactly the time for one of your little games, Cassie," Derek said shortly; he looked impatient. He made some comment over his shoulder that I didn't hear. Talking to himself, now? Just what we needed, a crazy Alpha.

"What game? What – okay, did I pass out and wake up without noticing, because I completely lost track of this conversation!" I said, waving my arms around.

"You don't see –he's standing right there!" Scott shouted, taking my arm and moving me closer to Derek, a position I didn't particularly want to be in. I realized he was pointing behind Derek, but… there was nothing there!

"Dude, it's a laundry basket, not a person!" I said, getting angry. This was a complete waste of time.

"Wha – no, you – he's righ-"

"SHUT UP!" he bellowed along with Derek, both turned to one particular spot on the floor while I jumped six feet high.

"Okay, what the frick, guys? Are you on some kind of weird werewolf drug right now? Because this is seriously starting to- do you see anyone?" I asked Isaac, whose face was set in a doubtful expression.

"It's not about seeing or not – Cassie, are you okay?"

"This is a waste of time, here." Derek took hold of my wrist to guide my hand in a random dir-

"WHOA!"

"HOLY SHIT!"

Scott and Isaac both jumped several feet backwards, shouting in shock.

"What? WHAT?" I shrieked, snatching my arm back and retreating several steps away. "Why are you shouting?"

Isaac used both hands to rub his scalp viciously. "Your hand – it just – it went right through-"

Scott looked like he was about to throw up. "That was the freakiest thing I've ever-"

But my stomach didn't really churn in panic before I saw the ghost white face of Derek Hale, whose eyes pivoted between my hand and the spot he brought it to.

"Okay, you are seriously freaking me out!" I whimpered, close to tears, while Scott and Isaac still paced and made frequent "Holy shit!"-sounds. "If this is some kind of sick jo-"

"Your hand," Scott brought up his own to demonstrate, "just passed right through," he waved his flat palm around, "his head!" He tapped it against his own skull for emphasis.

"WHOSE HEAD?" I screamed, using my own arm to gesture to the empty air next to me. "THERE'S NO ONE THERE-"

"CASSIE, HE'S RIG - WILL YOU JUST SHUT UP?" Scott roared, but not to me – to my right. "Cassie, listen to me, are you serious now? Do you really, really not see anyone?"

"No!" I shouted, my nerves shattered. "Who am I supposed to see?"

"Peter Hale!"

Black of blood and flesh of blue

"What?" I shrieked, sounding suspiciously like Lydia. "Peter Hale, as in psycho werewolf uncle Peter Hale?"

Vengeance will be cruel to you

Everyone in the room seemed stuck in a weird expression - a mix of disgust, panic and confusion – and Scott just nodded, his mouth shutting and opening without sound.

Do not taunt those aware

"Wait…" Puzzle pieces started coming together. "Peter Hale, as in the one who bit Lydia Peter Hale? Peter Hale as in the one you killed Peter Hale?" I spat the last part to Derek, who had yet to recover from his earlier shock, his hand still frozen where I left it.

You will feel the wrath of Blair

There was a ticking sound in my skull – a small tinkering of pebbles falling neatly into place – a horrible sensation of memories.

"The borders have been breached."

"He was in my head!"

"Open your eyes, girl!"

"He was in my he-eeaaad."

"HOLOCAUSTEM AUTEM HOC HOMINE!"

I backed away slowly. "Dead men tell no tales."

"What?" Scott asked, his eyes flickeringto something I couldn't see.

I don't see dead people.

"Are you telling me that the dead Peter Hale is here?" I asked carefully, moving backward until I felt the wall – the solid, real brick wall.

"Cassie, are you – you stay away from her!" Scott inched his way closer, Isaac coming from his other side, but paused to shout at someone I didn't see.

I held my hand up, signaling stop, wait, hold on. I just needed to – I took a deep breath. Closed my eyes slowly. How did this work again? Were my eyes open or closed right now?

Open your EYES, girl!

I opened my eyes. And opened them again.

My breath caught in my throat, stuck somewhere between my larynx and epiglottis. I didn't believe –not really believe – until I saw it with my own eyes. He was handsome, of undistinguishable age, and standing less than three feet away from me.

Peter Hale. The dead Alpha.

He smiled. "Oh look, it's almost as if she-"

"It was you." The accusation came before I had the chance to collect my thoughts. All the anger, the fury, the anxiety of the last month melded together and finally found a target. "You used her."

"Wait, you see him now?" Isaac asked from the sidelines, but I didn't pay him attention.

"You used Lydia," I said, my feet taking steps towards him at a careful pace. ¨

He backed away, hands coming up. "Now hold on, I don't thin-"

"You used her! You – you – you were in her head!" I screeched, hands stuck like claws in the air.

"Oh come on, I hardly did any-"

I lost it. I attacked. "LIAR!"

"Whoa, hey, hey!"

"Cassie!"

Scott jumped between us, Isaac grabbed hold of me at lightening speed, they both pulled me back while I kicked and fought to grab hold of that smug bastard face.

"I'll rip your tongue out of your mouth, you repulsive piece of – YOU USED HER! Holocaustum autem hoc homine, it was you! YOU WERE IN HER HEAD!"

I couldn't think, could barely see. Only thrived on the white, hot rage inside. How dared he? How could he? He – he – he messed with her will! It was – it was…

"Cassie, calm down!" Isaac tried to abate me.

Mistake.

I twisted out of their grips and slapped their hands away, now raising my finger to Isaac. It shook, as did my voice. "Do not – EVER – tell me what to do!"

He backed off, palms raised in surrender. I turned again to the disgusting filth of a werewolf, who had almost retreated back to Derek's side again. His eyes were squinted in a calculating son-of-a-bitch smirk.

"Do you have any idea what you've done?" My voice was so quiet I barely heard it myself, but of course the cursed werewolves did.

Peter Hale made a show of inspecting his fingernails. "Oh, I dare say she'll be alright with a little bit of therapy and some kind, supporti-"

"Therapy?" I barked and he took a step back. I couldn't find my words. "You – you think – therapy?" I could barely breathe.

"What is she talking about?"

I'd almost forgotten about Derek, and he sounded confused for once when he should be angry.

"What am I talking about? What am I – he used her! He used Lydia to crawl his way back to the land of the living, that's what I'm talking about!"

The three other werewolves turned to Peter Hale for confirmation. He shrugged. "It always pays to have a backup-plan."

I saw white again.

Next thing I knew, Isaac wrestled me back to our side of the room while Peter Hale delicately touched three claw marks made with short, human fingernails on his cheek.

My head was bursting. Thousand different voices shouted, screamed, and begged to be heard, all at the same time, all with different commandments. The words BURN and Law were on different sides, but the ones that rang truest. It all cooked down to this:

These Eight Words the Rede fulfill:

An Ye Harm None, Do what Ye Will.

He messed with her will.

Harm none.

"Look, Cassie, please. We can deal with this later, okay? Right now we have to focus on finding Stiles."

I tried to focus, concentrate, getting my thoughts together. This unbelievable feeling of vengeance and anger still boiled within, bubbled right beneath the surface – I wanted to kill him all over again.

An Ye Harm None – if it harms none.

I held my fist under my nose, trying to block out his stench. "I have to leave, I don't want any part of this as long as he's here."

"You don't want to hear the plan?" His voice was like gravedirt falling. "It involves your cousin."

"You don't go near her again!" I snapped, already moving his direction, Isaac stepping between again. "I swear to-"

"What do you swear, Cassie? Hm? Come on, let it out," he said, folding his hands behind his back.

Taunt me not or I swear- He's goading me. I trembled from trying to stay in control.

I strained my voice to be calm. "What you did – you – you messed with her free will, it's – you can't do that!"

"Oh, don't say that – she did it all on her own." He grinned. "With the proper motivation of course."

"It's unforgivable, it's-" It's the worst thing you can do.

"Aw, calm down, it's not like I killed her or anything." Peter Hale smirked, proud of himself.

An Ye Harm None.

My voice was barely a whisper. "You did, though. You did kill her."

He killed her. He did. That explains it.

"She's surprisingly spry for a dead person."

"So are you." I pulled myself together, my voice going cold again. "I'm leaving. He makes me sick, he smells of death."

Peter Hale gave a little wave. "Again, he is right here-"

An Ye Harm None!

"May the full horror of your actions be re

vealed to you," I snapped. There. I said it. The worst curse I knew. I turned on my heel, couldn't stand to see his sickening expression any more.

"Oh, come on, Blair!" he bellowed. "Is that the best you can do?"

I froze, eyes widening in realization. He knew. Oh by gods, he knew. That fool. Slowly, I twisted around, meeting his cocky smirk with a humorless smile on my face. I don't think I had ever been this serious in my life when I said: "You will regret those words. You're still dead to me."

I didn't wait to hear his reply this time, nor did I halter at the shouts of "Cassie!" from Isaac and Scott.

I was done playing – he crossed the line one too many times. He was in her MIND! This was beyond me, I knew that, so I powerwalked over the parking lot to my – to Sabrina's – Honda and pulled out my cell phone. Every fraction of my body vibrated in repressed anger. He used Lydia to resurrect himself. That monster. But resurrection never came without a price, and I promise it would be a tad bit steeper than he could ever prepare for.

I would see to that.

My fingers moved on their own over the cellphone-display. It only rang once before:

"Sabrina?"

"We know. Someone's on their way."

Of course they knew. Everyone with even a hint of sensitivity would have felt that shockwave when his heart started beating again.

"You don't know everything." I made a right turn, in the direction of the Beacon Hills Memorial. "He used Lydia." I told her of the bite, of Lydia's weird behavior – I'd been so horribly blind that I didn't see it before – and how it concluded.

Dead silence on her end of the line for a few seconds. "You know what to do."

Click.

I put my foot down heavier on the gas, face set in a steeled determination. Oh yes I did.

"Cassie? Oh thank God you're here, they keep telling me that Jackson's dead, but I don't believe them – I just can't – please, they won't let me see him and I know if I can just – Cassie? Cassie! Where the hell are we going?"

Lydia yanked her hand out of my grip and rubbed it with her other one. "Mind telling me what the hell you think you're doing?"

"Peter Hale forced you to bring him back to life." I tried to keep every hint of emotion out of my voice, but my lip snarled at the mention of his name. " That's what the weird zoning out and random screaming's been all about, right?"

She gaped. "How did you…I was going to tell-"

"Lydia. The next time a dead guy starts giving you orders in your own head, you tell me, okay? We're going to have a long chat about that, trust me. But right now, we have to find Stiles."

She didn't protest this time. Not even when I ran a red light. Not until she took notice of where we were going. "Cassie? If Stiles is missing, do you think he'll be at his own house?"

"No," I said shortly, checking my phone every few seconds in case Sabrina called. "We just need a personal item of his, something that he's touched or used within the last day or so, it'll help-"

I paused. How much would I tell her? How much would she understand right now? "It'll help find him."

"How?"

"It's how I found you," I said, parking next to the Sheriff's car in the driveway. We didn't have time for explanations right now; it'd have to wait until I knew Stiles was safe and not inches away from being cut in half by a geriatric psycho.

The door opened before I had time to even think about the key. The Sheriff stood there with the house phone in his hand. "Cassie, I was just about to call you!" He surprised me with pulling me into a brief hug. "Stiles, we found him, he's – he's upstairs."

It took the edge of my rage.

"Oh thank gods," I said and let my breath out. "Is he okay?"

"He um…" The Sheriff stopped, finally noticing Lydia behind me. "He won't talk to me, I don't know…would you?"

He was asking us both, but I turned to Lydia. She'd known him longer. With a small nod, she consented and started to head upstairs.

As much as I wanted to see Stiles, I still had business to attend to. I flashed the Sheriff a brief smile, gesturing to the stairs and saying something vague about bathroom and even used the words 'freshen up'. The phone rang, so that distracted him even further.

"Stilinski," he said and the minute his back turned, I snatched the box of matches on the dresser with me and ran upstairs. Aunt Melody's voice rang in my head:

Be aware of words spoken in ire

The universe is listening

And may grant your desire

There was just one answer to that right now: Good.

Inside the Sunflower Room, I closed the window and shut the door. Didn't even bother with the lights, but rummaged around in the drawers until I found the candle - probably stored for emergency blackouts. Standard, white, it would be perfect.

"Oh come on, Blair! Is that the best you can do?"

The match lit up in my fingers. "Not by a long shot, Hale."

If I concentrated, I could hear the muffled voices of Stiles and Lydia across the hall. That was not what I needed to concentrate on.

An Ye Harm None…

I smiled, meeting my dark eyes in the mirror. This would hardly count as harming anyone.

"Black of blood and flesh of blue."

It was just an empowerment really. I lit the candle and threw the match away.

"I will curse you if you force me to."

With my inner eye, I could see Peter Hale's smirk. "Is that the best you can do?"

"From left with sighs and negative ties.

I clear your eyes and curse your lies."

"It's not like I killed her or anything."

"I'll call the strength of a plague of flies."

My voice turned hollow and solid, strong and weak, cold and hot, all at the same time. A thousand voices mirrored in one.

"With the blood gone black and flesh of blue."

I held my left hand over the flame, so close it-

"The evil you sent is back to you!" It echoed in the room, like a shout for help in a thunderstorm.

"My soul now clean and yours on fire!"

The flame licked at my skin, not quite scorching it yet. The ground trembled, like the mildest of earthquakes. It felt the wrath of a Blair and thrived on it.

"You mess with a witch, you burn you liar!"

"Cassie?"

I gasped and slammed my hand down to smother the candle. The earth stilled, the wind abated, everything returned to normal. Stiles was in the doorway, his cheek bloody, his face confused.

The silence stretched on; I started to feel the burn of hot candlewax in my palm. The moment passed. Stiles came fully inside the room, even closed the door behind him. He cleared his throat – once; twice – and said the one word on his mind.

"Witch?"