CHAPTER 25

Cracked

"Jesus fucking Christ!" Mars jolted awake, she jerked her shoulder, pushing Stiles off and onto the ground. "What are you doing?" Mars sat up and watched Stiles as he lay, making no effort to pick himself up. She wasn't a massive fan of being jumped on first thing in the morning. Even if the person who jumped on her wasn't particularly hefty.

"You overslept." Stiles stated, as if it were obvious. Mars looked at her phone, cringing at the bright light in the dark room.

5:24 a.m.

"And you obviously don't value your life." She sat up and kicked him in the side.

Stiles stood, holding where she kicked. "Didn't anyone ever tell you not to kick a person when they're down."

"Yes, but what fun would that be?"

"You truly are a terrible human being." She shrugged and got up off the couch. "And keep your voice down, Dad's still sleeping."

Mars rolled her eyes and headed for the kitchen, having since remembered what she was late for. Stiles followed. Mars pulled the pancake mix from the cupboard. They still had a good sixteen minutes before Sheriff's alarm went off, she didn't totally blow the breakfast in bed plan.

"Have you talked to Scott yet?" Stiles merely glared at her. "It wasn't his fault, you know that, don't you?" He stayed silent and grabbed eggs and a frying pan. "If we're using your screwed-up logic, you should be mad at me, too." Reminding him she wasn't at the school when she should have been.

He shook his head. "No, it's not the same." Stiles studied her face, unable to place her expression.

"What's this really about, love?" She raised an eyebrow and looked over her shoulder at him.

"The fact he let my dad get hit by a freaking car?" Stiles nearly snapped. How could she even ask that? "Where were you anyways?"

"I don't know." She shook her head. "The Preserve maybe." Mars plugged in the waffle iron and sat on the counter beside it.

"You're joking, right?" He stopped cooking and walked to her spot on the counter, holding her eye contact.

"Should I be?" Her expression displayed her amusement.

"Considering three bodies have been found there in the last month? Yeah, you should be!"

"Lower your voice," Mars scolded. Stiles held her arms against her sides, entertaining her further.

"Look, I saw a picture of the alpha on Lydia's phone. There is no way any human could win against this thing."

Mars opened her mouth to speak, ready to tell him she thought it might be her, ready to tell him everything, but Stiles continued.

"Please be more careful. Please. You and Dad are all I have, so please, just... I know I can't make you do anything... But I need you, okay? Dad needs you. I'd literally go insane if anything ever happened to you."

He'd said this to her before, but it was clear to her that he felt the need to reinforce the sentiment with the increased frequency of her carelessness. Mars' nails dug into the palms of her hands. She couldn't tell him now. Something was happening to her. There was no getting around that. She locked her secrets back up inside her.

"I hate to break it to you, you're already insane." Stiles released her, biting the inside of his cheek with visible frustration. Maybe joking hadn't been the right way to diffuse tension this time.

Mars sensed his mounting anger, so she slid off of the counter and stood in front of him, looping her hands around his neck. "M ray sum S, M'desee" Mars said I love you, I'm sorry, in the best way she knew how. Stiles tried not to smile, but when they slipped into Martain- it was hard not to.

"Yeah, you keep saying that."

They cooked a little longer, and though neither of them were terribly good at it- it at least smelled edible. So much so, in fact, that the scent of bacon lulled a half-awake Sheriff down from his bedroom. "Is that bacon?" He asked, rubbing away the leftover sleep with the back of his hand.

Stiles hit his head against a cupboard door; "Really, Dad? You couldn't have waited 5 more minutes?" Sheriff took note of the TV tray and the carefully placed plates on top of it.

"Oh!" He gestured back towards the stairs. "Should I just-"

"That would be ideal, yeah," Mars watched him walk back up the stairs, and she knew her life couldn't be much better than it was in that moment.

Scott hid behind a textbook, occasionally peeking over the top, to steal a glance at Allison. He'd been tasked with avoiding her by Derek of all people. When he'd told his friends that knew the truth of the situation, he was met with hostility.

Stiles was hostile because Scott hadn't intervened when Sherriff was hit by a car and Mars because she didn't want to think about Derek and that visit to her bedroom...

"Did you come up with a plan yet?" Scott asked Stiles.

"I think so," Stiles replied. Mars was glad to see them speaking again. It had been a long 24 hours. It was a terrible feeling to know that she had to pick a side, and worse still was that her choice would always be Stiles. No matter how much she loved Scott, he didn't stand a chance. It didn't even matter if Stiles was right or wrong- and to be clear, he was in the wrong this time.

"Does that mean you don't hate me now?" Scott tried.

"No," Stiles said with a mouth full of apple, "but your crap has infiltrated my life, so now I have to do something about it. Plus, I'm definitely a better Yoda than Derek."

Mars rolled her eyes. She hated Star Wars. Dumbledore would have been better. Gandalf even. Just not that crusty old alien. The obsession with sci-fi never hit her nerd bones.

Mars drifted off into her head, thinking of all the cool things she might've been able to do had she gotten her Hogwarts acceptance letter when she was 11. Now that she knew the supernatural stuff was real- she was a British citizen and there was something off with her.

Dear god, I'm a fucking wizard. She'd convinced herself.

Stiles ripped her out of her thoughts by saying; "All right, you know what? I definitely still hate you. Uh–huh. Oh, yeah." And subsequently storming off with Scott in tow.

Turned out, Stiles' little gears had been grinding and he had come up with a not-as-terrible-as-it-could-have-been alternative to plan A (Derek). And seeing as they only had until the end of the school day to convince Scott he could handle this whole shifting thing without Derek, they had to get move on.

On free period; Scott, Mars, and Stiles met up on the lacrosse field with a "temporarily misappropriated" heart monitor, Coach Finstock's stolen cell phone, and a lot of lacrosse gear. Before long, Scott was tied up and Stiles was pelting his best friend with balls.

"Your aim is terrible, give me the stick." Mars snatched it from Stiles' hands and put a ball in the net as she smirked at Scott.

"Really? I thought it was improving." Mars shook her head at him, he shrugged and let her get in a few throws.

Though she wasn't angry with Scott like Stiles was, she knew he'd heal- and causing bodily harm was one of her favorite pass times. She aimed.

"Mars. Mars, no, no. Stiles-UGH" Scott pleaded, cut off by the ball flying violently into his gut. He groaned in pain and hunched over. Maybe she should join the team with a throw like that, because he felt like vomiting. Mars smirked back at Stiles, who was smiling openly as he handed her another ball.

"I hurt you because I love you!" She shouted over to him, a devious smile on her lips as she sent the ball hurling at him.

The unmistakable crack of ribs echoed and Scott dropped down to his knees immediately, crying out in pain. Mars, shocked, dropped the stick. She looked between Scott and Stiles frantic. Did I do that? Did Stiles hear that too?

He had heard it, and he was staring at her. In fear or awe? She couldn't tell. His attention was pulled by the heart monitors alerts, he picked up the stolen phone and tried telling Scott to control his heart rate.

Scott withered, breathing heavily, and broke the ties that bound him. Mars felt her heart rate rising along with the beeping of the monitor. There was no way that she broke his ribs with a lacrosse ball, she could barely throw a decent punch. No, no, no, it was a fluke. Just a fluke.

"I need to go." Mars took off, unable to stay and face Scott and his inevitable questions and her guilt.

She pushed past Stiles and walked towards the school. "See you at your house," She mumbled.

Jackson stood by the bleachers and directly in Mars' path. "Why are you watching us?" She snapped at him, her voice far less confident than he'd ever heard her.

The sickly-looking Jackson fumbled with his words for a moment. "Are you on what he's on?" He questioned.

He must've heard that crack from where he was watching. Mars' thought spiral deepened.

"Mars, come on, you have to hook me up with your dealer." He demanded, Mars' rage swelled within her. She was not a druggie. Sure… she was high sometimes, but she was doing mostly better. The anger she harbored towards Jackson was enough to distract her from her fear for that moment.

Mars clenched her fists and swung, hitting Jackson square in the jaw. Her instinct told her to protect Scott, he was the one with the real problem, under real suspicion. "Leave. Scott. Alone," She seethed and grabbed his shirt, pulling him towards her. What she lacked in height, she more than made up for in menace. "Or, so help me god, I'll crack one of your ribs with my bare hands." As soon as she released him, he ran off with urgency.

She looked back at her friends. Stiles was helping Scott up, and Scott said something to him, but she was too far away to hear. Her breathing was heavy as she texted Don her location. She needed him, needed what he could give her.

Mars caught a glimpse of Scott and Stiles returning from the lacrosse field, and, feeling no desire to deal with them at that moment, Mars hid around a corner.

Once she heard the sound of the heavy metal doors clang shut, she emerged from her hiding spot, just as Don walked out the door, they went in.

Seeing him sparked her anxiety tenfold. What had she been thinking? Messaging a goddamn hunter. As he walked toward her, he flashed a small plastic bag in the palm of his hand, a bag she knew the contents of.

Suddenly, she could breathe again.